Google’s Android Studio 4.0 is a major upgrade for the app development tool

Google has launched Android Studio 4.0, adding a host of new features to the app development environment.

The most eye-catching of the upgrades is a souped-up Motion Editor, Android’s interface for creating MotionLayout animations in apps. In previous versions of Android Studio, developers had to manually create and modify complex XML files to design their animations. The new Motion Editor generates the XML files for you, allowing you to create complex animations through a simply click-and-drag interface.

[Read: Building mobile apps isn’t a mystery when you have these dev courses]

Android has also added new ways to look at your app’s design. They include an enhanced Layout Inspector, which provides a live preview of your app’s design in 3D, and an upgraded Layout Validation, which now gives you a view of the UI across multiple screen dimensions.

Further highlights include a Build Analyzer that helps you address bottlenecks in your build, a redesigned CPU Profiler, and Java 8 language APIs.

Check out Android’s blog post on the release for further details on the update. And if you wanna try it out right now, head over to the official website to download Android Studio 4.0. 

Corona coverage

Read our daily coverage on how the tech industry is responding to the coronavirus and subscribe to our weekly newsletter Coronavirus in Context.

For tips and tricks on working remotely, check out our Growth Quarters articles here or follow us on Twitter.