Apart from emulator, is android studio working fine in M1 macs

Question

I currently have a windows laptop with an intel i5. I am looking to upgrade to an M1 mac. Emulation isn't a problem for me(Virtualization is slower on ARM). Can any early adopter let me know if it is fast enough for basic android development and some Xcode?

Answer 1

Available on Android Studio Arctic Fox (Beta)

The Beta version (Arctic Fox Beta 4) now has Apple Silicon support, so you can download it from Android Studio download archives. Look for, for example: Mac (Apple Silicon): android-studio-2020.3.1.19-mac_arm.zip (955253378 bytes). Don't use jetbrains toolbox because it is bit buggy, it downloaded an outdated version of Android Studio. I've noticed its also a day late on releases.

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Serious performance issues (before May 2021)

I've tried to use Android Studio for the past couple of months, and to me, it is unusable, let alone at parity with running it on Intel. I've always been on the Canary version too. I keep telling myself the M1 is faster, but I in reality I only notice speed reduction and freezes when compared to MacBook Pro 16" 2020 2.3GHz 8‑core Intel Core i9 or my Intel i7-9700K Hackintosh. I also use a physical device to dedicate more mac resources to the IDE.

• Very slow indexing/ navigation around the code base
• Very slow typing and clicking sometimes (general lag)
• Random freezes which require app restart
• The compile times are the least of my worries (see bottom section).

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Unfortunately, it is still very slow. Here I measure how long ./gradlew assembleDebug takes after a warm up of the same (./gradle assembleDebug):

• MacBook Pro 2.3GHz 8‑core Intel Core i9 VS. Mac M1 Mini
• 3 minutes and 1 second VS. 4 minutes and 46 secinds
• CPU Temperatures: 88 to 92C(+hot air blowing out 😅) VS. 41 to 45C

M1 chips are cool (in a temperature sense), but currently slow. I'll update when a Apple Silicon optimized Android Studio comes out.

Answer 2

I've been using a Macbook Pro with M1 for Android development in Android Studio for the past few days. It does feel a little slow at times, but the fact that it was never an incredibly smooth application to begin with (on my old 13" MacBook Pro anyway) means it's not much different. Also, since it's under Rosetta 2 at the moment I'm pretty happy with the performance.

I'd say if you're not working on anything critical then it's fine. However, I'd still be wary of recommending it to people who need a reliable solution for work and if you need the Android emulator you're out of luck completely as you need to rely on a dedicated device.