A First Look at the Developer Tools for Android L Preview

Introduction

Here is a look at the Developer Tools released today for Android L.

1. I began by removing my existing installation of Android Studio Preview. It says in the documentation that you can upgrade from existing versions, but I was unable to.
2. I then downloaded and installed Android Studio Beta! The current version is 0.8.0. If you are new to Android download the JDK 7 first.
   You will know everything is right by looking at the install version at the bottom. It should say v24-Jun-2014.cvs
   
3. I created a new project once installed.
   
4. By default it targets API Level 15 and gives you a nice breakdown of the amount of devices you will reach. We’ll leave it at the default and add a checkmark to TV.
   
5. The rest of the wizard is very similar to what we’ve seen before except there less screens and an option to add an activity to the TV (if selected).
6. After several minutes, Android Studio launched.
   
7. If you selected “TV”, then you will have a new tv folder to work with along with one called mobile:
   
8. Over in the Preview Windows you now have the options for the Watches and TV.
   
9. Here is the preview for Wear Square and the designer actually works now!
   
10. If you switch back to your phone and try to run your app on your device, you will get this error message: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_OLDER_SDK] (I’ll come back to this)
11. For now, update the SDK, by selecting the SDK manager and Installing all the package updates.
    
12. Make sure you close Android Studio (on Windows) or you will get this surprise:
    
13. You should end up with the following installed including the 4.4W(ear) if you are interested.
    
14. If you try to run the app on your phone, then you will see it is not compatible unless you have installed the L preview on your device.
    
15. Time to create an AVD. I created mine with the following settings:
    
16. Hit OK, then run your project and select the NexusL AVD created earlier. The emulator is still crazy slow! Try adding a checkmark to “Host GPU” and a lower resolution device to speed things up. You can optionally install the HAMX Intel drivers if your processor supports it.
    
17. OK, that app is pretty boring – so go play with the new OS!
    
18. I hope you enjoyed my quick write-up.
19. Important Links:
    Android Studio Beta
    Android L Preview Factory Images for your Devices
    API Overview
    Reference Documentation
    Android L Preview on Nexus 5