> On off-topic question: Why is the Android emulator so slow? I heard > that it's rather useless for developing apps and developers typically > run on a device instead. On iOS, it's the other way around - the > emulator is faster than the device and very convenient to develop for, > unless you use device capabilities not in the emulator (taking > pictures, GPS, gyrometer etc.).
Google uses an emulator whereas Apple uses a simulator. This means your Android app runs in a QEMU environment indistinguishable to from a real device, but is slow due to the dynamic binary translation taking place (allows ARM instructions on Mac, Windows and Linux). Unlike iOS, with the Android emulator hardware and software is encapsulated and you can emulate most every state by issuing commands [http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/ emulator.html#console]. > For instance, the narrator in the "Engadget Honeycomb emulator video" > complained that the actual execution (like clicking on a widget and > dragging it to the trashcan) was very slow and that Google was aware > of it. Check it > out:http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/26/android-3-0-honeycomb-preview-emul... > Now I thing Honeycomb uses more animations and hardware acceleration - > does that mean the emulator will be even slower? The (pre-release) SDK apparently ships default with image memory of 256MB, which might be what Engadget got hit by. No doubt, it would be nice with a faster emulator, Google have hinted at alternatives in the past and also acknowledges it in the FAQ [http://developer.android.com/ sdk/tools-notes.html]: "Known issues with emulator performance: Because the Android emulator must simulate the ARM instruction set architecture on your computer, emulator performance is slow. We're working hard to resolve the performance issues and it will improve in future releases." -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
