Android emulator alternative

Question

I'm completely new to Android development, but I just got a HTC Hero and would like to develop a few applications for it. However, I've use a laptop as my dev machine and the emulator is extremely slow. It took around 10-15 mins to boot up and although I could leave it on, it generally slows down the system when using other applications (like a web browser/Eclipse IDE etc..) What is the best way to develop for an Android phone? I could simply plug in the HTC and constantly load the new APK, but that just seems too long a process to test minor changes. Are there any other methods available for debugging applications, or will I have to brave the emulator until I can get a new system? Thanks

Answer 1

Using your HERO is the way to go. The loading of the APK and running the program after each change should only take a matter of a few seconds. If you do not have any emulators running and the HERO is plugged in (with the Android SDK USB driver installed) then Eclipse will automatically select the HERO as the target machine.

Answer 2

You can indeed just load the app onto the phone and test that way; it's what I do quite often.

Hitting Ctrl+Shift+F11 in Eclipse will automatically compile the app, upload the APK to the running device it finds (whether emulator or phone), and then starts the app.

This takes about seven seconds with my HTC Hero and dev machine (which is admittedly quite fast, but as Eclipse is usually compiling away in the background anyway, most of the time taken is for installation on the phone).