Android Studio 3.1

Posted by Jamal Eason, Product Manager, Android

We are excited to announce that Android Studio 3.1 is now available to download in the stable release channel. The focus areas for this release are around product quality and app development productivity. In addition to many underlying quality changes, we added several new features into Android Studio 3.1 that you should integrate into your development flow.

New to Android Studio 3.1 is a C++ performance profiler to help troubleshoot performance bottlenecks in your app code. For those of you with a Room or SQLite database in their your app, we added better code editor support to aid in your SQL table and query creation statements. We also added better lint support for your Kotlin code, and accelerated your testing with an updated Android Emulator with Quick Boot. If any of these features sound exciting or you are looking for the next stable version of Android Studio, you should download Android Studio 3.1 today!

Check out the list of new features in Android Studio 3.1 below, organized by key developer flows.

What's new in Android Studio 3.1

Develop

• Kotlin Lint Checks - Since announcing official Kotlin language support last year on the Android platform, we continue to invest in Kotlin language support in Android Studio. In Android Studio 3.1, we enhanced the Lint code quality checks so that now you can run them via the command line as well as from the IDE. Just open a Android Studio project, and run gradlew lint via command line. Learn more.

Kotlin Lint checks via command line

• Database Code Editing - Editing inline SQL/Room Database code in your Android project is now even easier with Android Studio 3.1. This release has SQL code completion in your @Query declarations, better SQL statement refactoring, and SQL code navigation across your project. Learn more.

Room Database code completion

• IntelliJ Platform Update: Android Studio 3.1 includes the IntelliJ 2017.3.3 platform release, which has many new features such as new Kotlin language intentions and built-in support for SVG image preview. Learn more.

Build

• D8 Dex Compiler - D8 is now the default dex compiler in Android Studio 3.1. Replacing the legacy DX compiler, D8 dexing is an under the hood APK compilation step that makes your app size smaller, enables accurate step debugging, and many times leads to faster builds. Ensure that your gradle.properties either has no android.enableD8 flag, or if it does ensure that it is set to true. Learn more.

• New Build Output Window - Android Studio 3.1 has an updated Build output window which organizes build status and errors in a new tree view. This change also consolidates the legacy Gradle output into this new window. Learn more.

New Build Output Window

Test

• Quick Boot - Quick Boot allows you to resume your Android Emulator session in under 6 seconds. Slow start time on the Android Emulator was a major pain point we heard from you and Quick Boot solves this issue. Like a physical Android device, the emulator must perform an initial cold boot, but subsequent starts are fast. The feature is enabled by default for all Android Virtual Devices. Additionally, in this release, you have finer grain controls of when to use Quick Boot and the ability to save the quick boot state on demand under the emulator settings page. Learn more of other top Android Emulator Features.

Quick Boot On Demand Setting

• System Images and Frameless Device Skins - The latest version of the Android Emulator now supports the Google Play Store and Google APIs on API 24 (Nougat) - API 27 (Oreo) emulator systems images as well as the P Developer Preview. Additionally the device emulator skins are updated to work in a new frameless mode, which can help you test your app with 18:9 screen aspect ratios, or Android P Developer Preview DisplayCutout APIs. Learn more.

Window frameless mode in the Android Emulator

Optimize

• C++ CPU Profiling - Last year with Android Studio 3.0, we launched a brand new set of Android profilers to measure the CPU, Memory, and Network Activity in your app. With Android Studio 3.1, in addition to performance profiling your Kotlin and Java language app code, you can now profile your C++ code in your app. Using simpleperf as backend, the C++ profiler allows you to record C++ method traces. Learn more.

C++ CPU Profiler

• Network Profiler Updates: Threads & Network Request - To aid with analyzing network traffic in your app, we added a new Network Thread view to inspect multithreaded network traffic, and we also added a new Network Request tab to dig into the network requests over time. With these updates to the Network Profiler you will have additional tools to trace the network traffic from each thread and network request all the way down through the network call stack. Learn more.

Network Profiler with thread support

To recap, Android Studio 3.1 includes these new major features:

Develop

• Kotlin Lint Checks
  
• Database Code Editing
  
• IntelliJ Platform Update

Build

• D8 Dex Compiler
  
• New Build Output Window

Test & Debug

• Quick Boot for Android Emulator
  
• API 27 with Google Play Emulator System Images
  
• Window frameless mode for Android Emulator

Optimize

• C++ Profiler
  
• Network Profiler - Thread Support
  
• Network Profiler - Request Support

Check out the release notes for more details.

Getting Started

Download

If you are using a previous version of Android Studio, you can upgrade to Android Studio 3.1 today or you can download the update from the official Android Studio download page.

We appreciate any feedback on things you like, issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug or issue, feel free to file an issue. Connect with us -- the Android Studio development team ‐ on our Google+ page or on Twitter.