I was reading the Android documentations, the AVD topic.
I have a question.. What's this means?
An AVD consists of:
You can choose a version of the standard Android platform or
the system image packaged with an SDK add-on.
Any thoughts?
This may refer to some of the manufacturer specific images. For example some devices are dual screen or have special hardware. This can be seen in the download/addon manager where there are references to LG and Samsung to name but a few.
Overall an avd is a simulation of an android device including the hardware configuration. You can have more than one, for example I have 3 to simulate different screen densities and android versions. They are great for testing and easy to setup via the avd manager, where you can also set other settings like the default avd.
To setup an avd instance go into eclipse or access via the android SDK folder (where ever you put it) both routes lead to the same GUI.
Related
I am trying to run some tests of an Android application I am developing. The question I have is if it is possible to create an actual android device with its settings not just skins and the device's layout using Android Studio or a Virtual Machine, in order to see how application operates on other devices.
Would really appreciate if anyone could help.
You can use AVD Manager in Android Studio. You can create Android VM with it. You can customize :
What Android Version runs on it
The device screen size
memory
camera
storage
You can send custom inputs
Physically moving the device
Custom GPS coordinates
Send sms and call
Change battery level
etc
It is more than a skin, you can access the file system with adb, navigates the settings etc.
What you can't do is having the custom software layers made by manufacturers (i.e. OneUI from Samsung). It is stock Android
The emulator seems to be a standard qemu running a complete android system, so it's not only a skin.
If you want to test on real devices, you can have a look at Firebase Test Lab, which offers actual devices for testing, for a fee. See https://firebase.google.com/docs/test-lab/android/available-testing-devices on how to get the list of devices. Another option is Browserstack, which seems free for open source projects.
I tried to make a hardware profile for Blackberry Classic 720*720 px resolution and 3.5" device. Then I made an avd with that profile and I got the error
User Blackberry Classic no longer exists as a device.
But created profile does exist at the specified path. What could be wrong?
Somehow your device definition got clobbered.1 The solution is to recreate the hardware profile. You shouldn't have to delete and re-create the AVD itself, although you will have to restart the AVD Manager after re-creating the device profile. Just make sure to name it exactly what is expected ("Blackberry Classic" in your case).
1 This happened to me when I created a custom device profile using Android Studio and then later opened up Eclipse with an outdated Android plugin. It decided that since it couldn't parse the hardware profile, it would rename it to something.bak. Then it complained that the AVDs that were using that profile were unusable and couldn't be repaired. Very irritating.
Sorry for the newbie question but I just downloaded and installed Android Studio in an effort to get into Android development. I've looked around and can't seem to find any information on how to add existing device definitions to the emulator/AVD Manager. Aren't there just a bunch of device definitions that the manufacturers provide that can be loaded into the IDE via the AVD Manager. It seems like that would be the logical way to do this. It seems like the only thing you can do is create a new device based on existing device definitions. Is it possible to add device definitions? How is this done?
You are free to add your own device definitions to the AVD - the definitions for Nexus devices (and some others) are already provided.
Launch the AVD, switch to the Device Definitions tab, and click the Create Device... button (see screenshot below).
Now fill in the values based on the device you are trying to simulate (lookup the device specs here if needed).
Once you've created a definition, select it from the list and then click the Create AVD... button. Here you can choose the Android version and CPU type (ARM/Intel), and various other emulator specific settings.
I created an Android application that I have published in the marketplace. It crashes on a specific device, the Motorola Cliq XT, so I would like to make an AVD of this device and test it in the emulator. I know that I can make a new AVD with the right API level, but what other considerations are there for this AVD so that I can closely mimic the actual device? Are there standard AVDs that someone has released for different phones, or do we not have that kind of flexibility? Thanks.
The Motorola Developer Network site provides instructions for downloading and installing the necessary add-ons to support the creation of a device-specific AVD. Sadly, I'm no longer able to find the actual download page.
I'm new to Android, but have published iphone and bberry apps. I see that I have to create an emulator using the SDK, before I can write and test an app. Why are there no default emulators? Why not at least a Nexus one, or HTC hero emulator shipped with the product?
Sure its supposed to be flexible, but why not make it easy to create hello world and play around with a virtual Android phone? Both blackberry and iphone come with default simulators when you download the sdk.
Thanks,
Gerry
Since you can create an emulator configuration - or Android Virtual Device (AVD) - with three mouse clicks and typing a name I don't see too much wrong with the Android Emulator that ships with the SDK.
The reason that there's no Nexus One or HTC Hero emulator is that these ship with proprietary code which can't be given away free with the emulator.
The Sense UI that comes with the Hero is written by HTC only for their handsets and some of the Google Apps, such as Google Maps, GMail and YouTube are owned by Google and are not part of the Android Open Source Project. I believe Google charge handset makers for these apps and if they included them in the SDK then anyone could have them for free.
The SDK includes emulators for all currently released devices, you just have to create and name them.
To create a "Nexus One" emulator, you would create an AVD that is using the 2.1 SDK, and has a screen size of WVGA800. It's as simple as that.
It used to be this way, but was changed to make developers think about what platform version / configuration they are developing against (and to allow multiple platform AVDs to be created).
Here is a quick way to launch an emulator running cupcake:
$ android create avd -n android1.5 -t
$ emulator -avd android1.5
What about other features.... i would love to make my app work on all android devices but, i dont own all of them, just 1. So i have to create an avd for each possible hardware configuration(phone). meaning i have to track down the exact specs for say 5-10 phones? resultion, density, aspect ratio, input types, multi touch? proccessor FPU? some do some dont. etc etc. something needs done.
I'm confused by your question. The SDK ships with an emulator. You just have to create and configure an instance of it first through the SDK and AVD manager.
You can create appropriate avd using android (android.bat) in folder /tools of sdk. Also you can choose resolution, sd card, API level. It's really easy:)
If you want to write for Nexus - why not? Choose appropriate sdk level and enjoy.