Following in the footsteps of Microsoft, Google is now offering early access to new developer features in Android Studio to the public.

“Android Studio previews give you early access to new features in all aspects of the IDE, plus early versions of other tools such as the Android Emulator and platform SDK previews,” Google’s Scott Main writes in a new post to the Android Developers Blog. “You can install multiple versions of Android Studio side-by-side, so if a bug in the preview build blocks your app development, you can keep working on the same project from the stable version.”

You can find the Android Studio previews on the Android Developer website. According to the site, the Android Studio 2.4 Preview 3 release is now available. (The stable version of this application is version 2.3.) This version supports the Android O Developer Preview SDK, which was announced last week alongside the first Android Developer Preview.

New features in Android Studio 2.4 include various core IDE changes, build tool changes, and a new Device Explorer that lets you interact with the file system on a connected device.

As you may recall, Microsoft recently announced the Visual Studio Preview, which provides early access to new features in its own developer suite. On the Apple side of the fence, you need to join the Apple Developer Program at a cost of $99 per year to gain access to betas for the Xcode developer environment, iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tVOS.

Tagged with Android Studio