Part 0: Downloading and Installing Android Studio

Android Studio is available from Android’s developer site at https://developer.android.com/sdk/.
If you do not already have it installed, you will need to install the Java Development Kit (JDK7), which
yo
u can download from http://www.oracle.com.
If you are still having problems, return to https://developer.android.com/sdk/ for more information.
Downloading Earlier SDK Versions
Android Studio provides the SDK and the emulator system image from the latest platform. However, you
ma
y want to test your apps on earlier versions of Android.
Yo
u can get components for each platform using the Android SDK Manager. In Android Studio, select Tools
→ Android → SDK Manager. (You will only see the Tools menu if you have a project open. If you have not
created a project yet, you can instead access the SDK Manager from the Android Setup Wizard screen. Under
the Quick Start section, select Configure → SDK Manager, as shown in Figure 1.)
Figure 1 Android SDK Manager

Select and install each version of Android that you want to test with. Note that downloading these
components may take a while.
The Android SDK Manager is also how to get Android’s latest releases, like a new platform or an update
of the tools.
An Alternative Emulator
The speed of the Android emulator has improved significantly over time and it is a reasonable way to run
the code that you write in this book.
As an alternative, Genymotion is a popular, third-party Android emulator. You will occasionally see
references to the Genymotion emulator in this book. For more information on Genymotion, visit
http://genymotion.com/.
A Hardware Device
The emulator and Genymotion are useful for testing apps. However, they are no substitute for an actual
Android device when measuring performance. If you have a hardware device, we recommend using that
device at times when working through this book.