What is the purpose of using a virtual device, or emulator, in android studio?

Important Enable hardware acceleration for the Android devices. For more information, see Android Device Manager on Windows You use the Android Device Manager to create and configure an Android Virtual Devices (AVD) that run in the Requirements To use the Android Device Manager, you'll need the following items: • Visual Studio 2022: Community, Professional, and Enterprise editions are supported. • The Android SDK API Level 30 or later. Be sure to install the Android SDK at its default location if it isn't already installed: C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk. • The following packages must be installed: • Android SDK Tools 5.0 or later • Android SDK Platform-Tools 31.0.3 or later • Android SDK Build-Tools 30.0.2 or later • Android Emulator 30.8.4 or later These packages should be displayed with Installed status as seen in the following screenshot: When you install the .NET Multi-Platform App UI development workload in Visual Studio, everything is installed for you. For more information on setting up .NET MAUI with Visual Studio, see Open the device manager Open the Android Device Manager in Visual Studio from the Tools menu by pressing Tools > Android > Android Device Manager: Main screen When you run the Android Device Manager, it presents a screen that displays all currently configured virtual devices. For each virtual device, the Name, OS (Android Version), Processor, Memory size, and screen Resolution are displayed: When you select a device in the list, the Star...

In this article There are several ways to test and debug your Android application using a real device or emulator on your Windows machine. We have outlined a few recommendations in this guide. Run on a real Android device To run your app on a real Android device, you will first need to enable your Android device for development. Developer options on Android have been hidden by default since version 4.2 and enabling them can vary based on the Android version. Enable your device for development For a device running a recent version of Android 9.0+: • Connect your device to your Windows development machine with a USB cable. You may receive a notification to install a USB driver. • Open the Settings screen on your Android device. • Select About phone. • Scroll to the bottom and tap Build number seven times, until You are now a developer! is visible. • Return to the previous screen, select System. • Select Advanced, scroll to the bottom, and tap Developer options. • In the Developer options window, scroll down to find and enable USB debugging. For a device running an older version of Android, see Run your app on the device • In the Android Studio toolbar, select your app from the run configurations drop-down menu. • From the target device drop-down menu, select the device that you want to run your app on. • Select Run ▷. This will launch the app on your connected device. Run your app on a virtual Android device using an emulator The first thing to know about running an Android ...

Key Difference between Emulator and Simulator • Emulators are written in machine-level assembly languages, whereas Simulators are written in high-level languages. • Emulators are more suitable when it comes to debugging purposes, while simulators can be difficult in terms of debugging purposes. • An emulator comes as a complete re-implementation of the original software, whereas A simulator is just a partial re-implementation of the original software. • Both Emulators and Simulators are virtual devices. A virtual device is not the real phone but a software which gives the same functionality as the real phone (except a few functionality like the camera). Testing on a real device allows you to run your mobile applications and checks its functionality. Real device An emulator is a software program that allows your mobile to imitate the features of another computer or mobile software you want them to imitate by installing them to your computer or Mobile. Here are the main difference between Simulator and Emulator Testing The simulator-based testing The emulator based testing Simulator’s objective is to simulate the internal state of an object as close as possible to the internal state of an object. The emulator aims at emulating or mimicking as close as possible the outer behavior of an object Simulators are preferable whenever the testing team needs to test the mobile’s internal behavior like its internal hardware, firmware, and so forth. Emulators are preferable whenever the...

I'm starting the studies about android development with Android Studio and I was wondering if it's possible to build applications only running code on a physical device or do I need to emulate others devices in order to avoid errors, etc.? The Android Studio emulator barely runs in my machine, so I need to know if it is essential for the apps development or if there are other alternatives. If you need to run on different versions of Android, just what @CrazySports101 mentioned, but also test different screen sizes & resolutions to check UI responsiveness, it would be better to use emulators. Obviously, you can start development using either a single emulator or physical device, but during your final testing stages, it would make sense to use emulators to test all your device specific usecases. And yes, there are few limitations with using an emulator, like it cannot emulate network connectivity, other real-time data, such as GPS, sensors, battery issues, etc. Or usecases such as calling, receiving SMS is not possible as well. If you have a physical device, you can just use that. No need to run the emulator at all. An emulator is mostly used because it is convenient and easy to test different versions of android. For example, some libraries/UI component may behave differently on different phones. It is better to use a physical device if your app is using radios like Bluetooth etc. If you just started to learn android studio and your device can barely run emulator, I would r...