For all you Android modders and developers out there that are using the Android SDK you just might like to hear that the Android dev team have now updated their SDK tools to v17 that delivers a bundle of extra goodness for devs to play with when building new Android builds or apps.
According to the guys over at Android Community, the Android SDK update has numerous teaks to stability and performance; however, the main addition isn’t from the Google guys themselves, as apparently they have borrowed code to make the emulator that comes with the tool package run natively on x86 systems.
This means that the emulator in the SDK now runs more efficiently and faster on Windows and OS X computers, as it doesn’t require to go through so many virtualisation layers, and the guys say that although it still isn’t that fast, it is now less frustrating based on their quick run through.
With Android Ice Cream Sandwich bringing more memory strain and processing than Android Gingerbread and Android Honeycomb, the guys say the update is a big blessing for those that have worked with the time sensitive app.
There’s also another feature, tethered multi-touch support, that enables full control of the emulator and test app with a tablet or smartphone tethered to your PC via USB cable, but currently this is still in the experimental stages and in order to function needs an Android Ice Cream Sandwich device.
For those Android developers and modders that would like to take advantage of the emulator, you can do so by hitting up the Android developers site and installing the package, then use the SDK tools to download the packages and start the AVD tool.