Level Up - Android Dev: The default emulator is horrendously slow, use Genymotion!

Many years back when I built and published my first Android apps, I only tested them on the default emulator provided by Google. And, even now, the default emulator is still too slow for my liking. It doesn't allow me to properly test apps. So, I purchased physical devices so that I would never have to touch the Android emulator again.

Genymotion provides a different take on the Android emulator. I've known about it for at least a year, but never got around to trying it because of my really bad experience with the default emulator. I've always heard that it was much faster than Google's implementation, but I didn't think an Android emulator could ever be fast enough for me compared to my physical devices.

I'm always learning something new, and today was finally time for me to learn more about Genymotion and test just how much better it is.

Results: Excellent! So much of a great experience that I had to write this blog post about it! I should have tried Genymotion when I first heard about it, and this is my message to all Android devs to also try it out now!

Sidenote: I was going to compare the default emulator with the Genymotion emulator side-by-side, but it was taking too long to load for me, whereas Genymotion startup was a breeze of fresh air. It runs without any lag. It runs faster than my old API 17 device.

Another great benefit is that Genymotion provides system images for many of the most popular devices, including Samsung Galaxy, Samsung Note, HTC One, Nexus, and more. And, they have a very convenient plugin for Android Studio to launch the emulator.

TLDR: It's fast. I have to make sure I stress that because I didn't believe how fast it would be. Genymotion's Android emulator is much faster and better experience than the default Android emulator.



Here, I even saved enough time to write a quick walkthrough for getting started. ;)

1. Go to Genymotion.com, click "Get Genymotion".
2. Download the free version, you'll have to sign up and confirm your email. (It's quick and it's worth it!)
3. Install it along with VirtualBox. For Windows users, they can bundle the two together in the download. For other, you'll have to install VirtualBox separately.
4. If you try to run it now, you might get an error that says "genymotion virtualization engine not found. Unable to load VirtualBox engine". So, just restart your computer and that fixed it for me. Some others had to enable the virtualization feature in the BIOS.
5. Run! Fast!
6. Now, you can click run in Android Studio and you will see an option to load the app in the Genymotion emulator that is running.

Bonus: How to Install the Genymotion Plugin for Android Studio (and, the first time you click on the installed plugin button, you'll have to add the path to where you installed it. Windows default is "C:\Program Files\Genymobile\Genymotion". Mac default is "/Applications/Genymotion.app")

~ Danial Goodwin ~

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My Android Apps | My Windows Phone Apps | My Developer Blog

Level Up - Android: How to get started with Android Wear and the Wearables Emulator

Recently, I started working on Android Wear for the first time. It's been fun playing around with the new platform and form factor. And, of course, the official Android docs that I read could be condensed further for absolute newcomers. So, in the typical fashion, I've created myself a cheat sheet that I would use next time I would want to learn the easiest way for how to best create Wearable apps.

I've open sourced all my code so far on GitHub. It includes how to first set up the virtual Wear device, connect to the handheld device, and how to have the app send and open a notification on the wearable.

https://github.com/danialgoodwin/android-wear

~ Danial Goodwin ~

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My Android Apps | My Windows Phone Apps | My Developer Blog

Level Up - WP Dev: How to Remove Debug Information From Windows Phone Emulator

(This post is for developers of the Windows Phone platform.)

Ever find the frame rate counters and other debug information on the Windows Phone emulator more annoying than useful? It always appears there, whether in debug mode or release mode.

What if you want to get a clean screenshot without having to edit the image later? The red and white performance information on the side of the emulator screen is a nice feature, but I haven't needed to use it much in my recent apps.

It's possible. And, you only have to change one word.

How To:
1. Open App.xaml.cs.
2. Find the line that says `Application.Current.Host.Settings.EnableFrameRateCounter = true;`.
3. Change `true` to `false`.

That's it!

Now, you can get the full/real experience that end users would get when using your app, emulator style.

Feel free to share this with other WP devs that you know.

By default, the emulator has debug information on it.

Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/gg588380(v=vs.105).aspx

~ Danial Goodwin ~

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My Android Apps | My Windows Phone Apps | My Developer Blog

Error: The Windows Phone Emulator wasn't able to ensure the virtual machine was running

Here's just another problem that I experienced while trying to create a Windows Phone app. It didn't come up last night for my last app. So, I figured out that I was running too many things at once for my 4GB RAM laptop. Or, should I say, Windows was running too many things? The one differentiating factor between last night and tonight was that tonight there was a "Windows Maintenance in progress". But, it wasn't too bad. I just closed out every other program I had open, including the Dropbox sync and I was able to continue opening the Windows Phone WXGA emulator so that I could take screenshots for the store.

Here's the full error report:

[Window Title]Windows Phone Emulator 

[Content]The Windows Phone Emulator wasn't able to ensure the virtual machine was running:
Something happened while starting a virtual machine: 'Emulator WXGA.danial' could not initialize. (Virtual machine ID C3F3456A-1234-ASDF-87GH-ABD23456GG90)
Not enough memory in the system to start the virtual machine Emulator WXGA.danial with ram size 1024 megabytes. (Virtual machine ID C3F3456A-1234-ASDF-87GH-ABD23456GG90)
[Close]

~ Danial Goodwin ~

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My Android Apps | My Windows Phone Apps | My Developer Blog