Why you should go for Visual Studio for C++ Android Development

Microsoft's Visual Studio is a comprehensive collection of developer tools and services which help the user to create applications for the Microsoft platform and beyond. In 2005, Microsoft released the free Express version of Visual Studio, following up the previous community edition of 2013 which allowed managing the plugins via Nuget Package Manager.

It is from the beginning; the Visual Studio supported Visual C++. Now C++ can be compiled to target Android applications. This has given Android apps development company enormous opportunities. While compiling for Android, this platform uses the CLANG toolchain. Visual Studio includes a fast Android emulator along with Android Development Kits (SDK, NDK) plus Apache Ant and Oracle Java JDK, so you don’t have to switch to another platform to use external tools.

Here are best five reasons why you should go for Visual Studio for C++ Android Development.

- Obtains all your Android platform needs

Visual Studio is a one stop solution for all the needs that are required for C++ Android development. It provides Android app development kits Apache Ant, Microsoft Android Emulator, Oracle Java JDK, templates and samples to begin. Apart from this, the new live update mechanism in Visual Studio allows updating Android development environment.

- Visual Studio is the cross-platform mobile solution

This is one of the primary benefits of using Visual Studio because it is cross-platform support not limited to C++ only. It also extends to other popular cross-platform mobile development technologies such as Xamarin, which further allows development of rich native apps using C#, hybrid apps with JavaScript using Apache Cordova and build 2D, 3D games using Unity in Visual Studio.

- Enables Faster coding

Android developers gain the best coding experience with Visual Studio, whether they are authoring Java or C++ code. The visual studio has introduced support to Android developers who have a lot of C++ code but also have some Java code and had to use other editors for this portion of the code-base. The C++ coding experience is complete and offers services for code navigation, IntelliSense and even advanced refactoring features.

- Deploy, Test and Debug Android Applications
Microsoft’s Visual Studio provides its emulator for Android for a fast edit-build-debug cycle. It is Fast, x86, Hyper-V based and provides support for simulating a range of sensors including accelerometer, screen orientation, SD card, battery, multi-touch, GPS, camera, audio, etc.

- Builds C/C++ Android Application faster

Microsoft Visual Studio partners with Xoreax Incredibuild to provide the fastest build experience while you are engaged in developing local machine by parallelized build plans, performing dynamic resource management and providing a slew of diagnostic tools to understand and troubleshoot bottlenecks.

- Maintain Insights using HockeyApp

Visual Studio allows distributing apps to the testers through the web. This helps them to keep updated which further contributes to making customer-driven enhancements. HockeyApp also helps to gain insights from crashes to improve the quality of apps continuously.

So, there were few advantages of using Visual Studio for C++ Android Development. Download Visual Studio today and experience C++ Android experience differently.