P RE SENTED BY

LU IS DE LA ROSAD IREC T OR OF T EC HNOLOGY

BECOMING MORE EFFECTIVEWITH THE ANDROID EMULATOR

@louielouie

AnDevCon San Francisco 2013

AKA

ANDROID EMULATOR MYTHS.. .

BUSTED!2.1

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

Engineers f rom many companies have been working hard on making it better. . .but they don’t get 1 hour Broadway Launch Events to show it off.

THE EMULATOR IS WAY, WAY BETTER THAN YOU EVER THOUGHT

- SPEED UP THE EMULATOR

- KNOW YOUR OPTIONS

- BEND THE EMULATOR TO YOUR WILL

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN DETAIL

LET’S DEMYSTIFY THIS

Android Virtual Device Manager > New.. .

MYTH #1: NON-NEXUS DEVICES CAN’T BE EMULATED

EMULATING THE AMAZON KINDLE FIRE

Android SDK ManagerTools > Manage Add-On Sites. . .User-defined Sites, New.. .

http://kindle-sdk.s3.amazonaws.com/addon.xml

MYTH #1: NON-NEXUS DEVICES CAN’T BE EMULATED

BUSTED!

MYTH #1: NON-NEXUS DEVICES CAN’T BE EMULATED

MYTH #1: NON-NEXUS DEVICES CAN’T BE EMULATED

MYTH #1: NON-NEXUS DEVICES CAN’T BE EMULATED

NEXUS DEVICES ARE GOOD

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

STARTUP TIME ON2011 13” MACBOOK PRO2.3 GHZ I5 + SSD UPGRADE:

CONFIRMED?

3:40

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

ON SUBSEQUENT STARTS:

PLAUSIBLE?

1:10

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

MOST ANDROID DEVICES RUN ARM

THE ANDROID EMULATOR TOO

BUT ARM EMULATION ON INTEL IS SLOW

WHY ARM IMAGE?

ACCURATE EMULATION

COMPARE TO IOS SIMULATOR

TRANSITION TO X86 PRESERVED ACCURACY

PROBLEM

ARM SYSTEM IMAGE

QEMU

X86 CHIP

SOLUTION

X86 SYSTEM IMAGE

VIRTUAL MACHINE (HAXM)

X86 CHIP WITH VT-X

VT-X EXPLAINED

ACCELERATES X86-BASED VIRTUAL MACHINES IN HARDWARE

MUST BE ENABLED IN BIOS

AMD HAS SIMILAR AMD-V

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

INTEL ATOM X86SYSTEM IMAGE

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

INTEL ATOM X86SYSTEM IMAGE

Available for 2.3.3 (10), 4.0.3 (15), 4.1.2 (16),4.2.2 (17) and 4.3 (18); 4.4 is in development

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

INTEL ATOM X86SYSTEM IMAGE

HAXM EXPLAINED

HARDWARE ACCELERATED EXECUTION MANAGER

A CUSTOM VIRTUAL MACHINE FOR THE ANDROID EMULATOR

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

HAXM MAKES EMULATOR RUN CLOSE TO NATIVE SPEED

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

INSTALLING HAXM STEP 1

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

INSTALLING HAXM STEP 2

<sdk>/extras/intel/Hardware_Accelerated_Execution_Manager/IntelHAXM.dmg (or .exe on Windows)

Need to install HAXM in addition to the Android add-in.

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

INSTALLING HAXM STEP 3

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

BEACON MOUNTAIN

All-in-one install

h!p://so"ware.intel.com/en-us/vcsource/tools/beaconmountain

Includes Android SDK, Eclipse, ADT, HAXM, NDK

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

ON LINUX, USE KVMINSTEAD OF HAXM

emulator -avd <avd_name> -qemu -m 512 -enable-kvm

SOLUTION (LINUX)

X86 SYSTEM IMAGE

QEMU + KVM

X86 CHIP WITH VT-X

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

HAXM MAKES EMULATOR RUN CLOSE TO NATIVE SPEED

HAX is working and emulator runs in fast virt mode

Look in LogCat for:

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

STARTUP TIME WITHX86 SYSTEM IMAGE + HAXM ON 2011 13” MACBOOK PRO2.3 GHZ I5 + SSD UPGRADE:

BUSTED!0:21

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

ON SUBSEQUENT STARTSX86 SYSTEM IMAGE + HAXM:

DOUBLE BUSTED!!

0:17

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

ON SUBSEQUENT STARTSX86 SYSTEM IMAGE + HAXM+ LAUNCH FROM SNAPSHOT:

MYTH #2: EMULATOR IS SLOW

ON SUBSEQUENT STARTSX86 SYSTEM IMAGE + HAXM+ LAUNCH FROM SNAPSHOT:

TRIPLE BUSTED!!!

0:06

MYTH #3: DEVICES ARE BETTER FOR PROFILING

HAXM/KVM LEVERAGES YOUR DESKTOP/LAPTOP CPU

Intel x86 vs ARMv7

Different goals: Performance vs ba"ery life

Side-effects: Heat

MYTH #3: DEVICES ARE BETTER FOR PROFILING

EXPERIMENTAL GPU ACCELERATION LEVERAGES

YOUR VIDEO CHIPSET

Note: does not play well with Snapshot

MYTH #3: DEVICES ARE BETTER FOR PROFILING

TOO FAST?

File I/O can be much slower with SD vs SSD or HDD

Profiling should be done on Devices

CONFIRMED

BRIEF MYTH INTERLUDE

KEYBOARD & SKIN

NO KEYBOARD

NO SKIN WITH CONTROLS

MEMORY & STORAGE SIZING

TALKING TO YOUR COMPUTER

10.0.2.2

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTSRotate - Control-F11

Home - Home (Fn-le# on Mac)

Back - Esc

Menu - F2

DON’T SEE EMULATOR?

adb kill-server

adb devices

(note that adb is restart implicitly)

MYTH #4: ANDROID EMULATOR IS LIMITED

It takes work to emulate a device and some things have not been built yet:

PLAUSIBLE

Bluetooth

USB

MYTH #4: ANDROID EMULATOR IS LIMITED?

But it can do things that a device can’t easily do.

EMULATOR CONSOLEtelnet localhost 5554

Note: need to enable telnet in Windows 7/8

MYTH #4: ANDROID EMULATOR IS LIMITED?

Why 5554?

EMULATOR LISTENS TO A PORT

> adb devices

List of devices a"ached emulator-5554 device

MYTH #4: ANDROID EMULATOR IS LIMITED?

INBOUND CALL

gsm call 15558675309

MYTH #4: ANDROID EMULATOR IS LIMITED?

INBOUND SMS

sms send 15558675309 "It's me, Jenny"

MYTH #4: ANDROID EMULATOR IS LIMITED?

ENABLING POWER CHANGESIn <avd_home>/avd/<avd_name>.avd/config.ini:

change hw.ba"ery=noto

hw.ba"ery=yes

Otherwise: crash!

MYTH #4: ANDROID EMULATOR IS LIMITED?

ENABLING POWER CHANGES

MYTH #4: ANDROID EMULATOR IS LIMITED?

“No support for determining ba"ery charge level and AC charging state.”

- Android Emulator Documentation

BUSTED!

MYTH #4: ANDROID EMULATOR IS LIMITED?

FULL SPEED AHEAD!

power capacity 100power ac on

MYTH #4: ANDROID EMULATOR IS LIMITED?

ALMOST EMPTYpower ac off

power status dischargingpower capacity 10

MYTH #4: ANDROID EMULATOR IS LIMITED?

SAY CHEESE!

MYTH #4: ANDROID EMULATOR IS LIMITED?

EMULATED CHEESE

MYTH #4: ANDROID EMULATOR IS LIMITED

Experimental tethering support for:

Hardware Sensors

Multi-Touch

MYTH #5: DEVICE IS BETTER FOR DEBUGGING

Emulator is like a Rooted Device

BUSTED

without voiding your warranty

MYTH #5: DEVICE IS BETTER FOR DEBUGGING

You can’t normally browse internal data at /data/data

MYTH #5: DEVICE IS BETTER FOR DEBUGGING

You can pull a file and verify

MYTH #5: DEVICE IS BETTER FOR DEBUGGING

Unit Tests run faster on Emulator (due to CPU)

Your physical keyboard is easier to use than virtual

Can click with mouse instead of touching

MYTH #5: DEVICE IS BETTER FOR DEBUGGING

Sometimes you don’t have a device

Le# it at home

On the plane

The Next Big Thing

Presentation

MYTH #5: DEVICE IS BETTER FOR DEBUGGINGThe Next Big Thing

MYTH #5: DEVICE IS BETTER FOR DEBUGGINGThe Next Big Thing

MYTH #5: DEVICE IS BETTER FOR DEBUGGINGThe Next Big Thing

MYTH #5: DEVICE IS BETTER FOR DEBUGGINGThe Next Big Thing

BREAKING NEWS: GENYMOTION

Released yesterday (11/13/2013)

Runs on both Intel’s VT-x and AMD’s AMD-V

May be the future of Android emulation

Commercial alternative to existing emulator options

Built on the open source project AndroVM

GENYMOTION: USES VIRTUALBOX

Like HAXM, but different.Don’t try to use both at the same time.

SOLUTION (GENYMOTION)

X86 SYSTEM IMAGE

VIRTUAL MACHINE (VIRTUALBOX)

X86 CHIP WITH VT-X

GENYMOTION LETS YOU SKIP THE AVD CONFIGURATION SCREEN

GENYMOTION ADDS VISUAL CONTROLS

GENYMOTION SHELL: THE ALTERNATIVE TO EMULATOR CONSOLE

WHICH TO USE?

TRY BOTH HAXM AND GENYMOTION

QUESTIONS

?Luis de la RosaDirector of Technology, savvy appsh!p://savvyapps.comEmail: luis@savvyapps.comTwi!er: @louielouieGoogle: google.com/+luisdelarosa

Presentation, notes and links:luisdelarosa.com/emulator

HTTP://SAVVYAPPS.COM/

COME DO THE BEST WORK OF YOUR CAREER

luisdelarosa.com/emulator