The Android SDK includes a variety of tools that help develop mobile applications for the Android platform. The most important of them are the emulator and the plugin for Eclipse, but the SDK includes various tools for debugging, packaging and installing your applications on the emulator.
Android emulatorA virtual mobile device that runs on a regular computer. The emulator is used to design, debug, and test your applications in a real Android runtime environment.
Android Development Tools (ADT) Plugin for Eclipse')
The ADT plugin is a powerful extension for the Eclipse IDE that makes building and debugging your applications easier and faster. If you use Eclipse, this plugin provides an incredible increase in the speed of developing applications for Android:
»Provides access to other Android tools inside Eclipse. For example, ADT allows access to many DDMS (Dalvik Debug Monitor Service) features - taking screenshots, managing ports, setting breakpoints, viewing information about threads and processes directly from Eclipse.
»Provides the New Project Wizard, which will help you quickly create and configure all the necessary files for your application.
»Automates and simplifies the process of building applications.
»Provides an Android code editor to help write the correct XML file for the Android manifest and resource files.
Dalvik Debug Monitor Service (ddms)Integrated with Dalvik, the standard Android virtual machine, this tool allows you to manage processes on an emulator or device, and also helps in debugging applications. You can use this service to complete processes, select a specific process for debugging, generate trace data, view heaps or information about streams, take screenshots of an emulator or device, and much more.
Android Debug Bridge (adb)The adb tool allows you to install your files with the ".apk" extension on an emulator or device from the command line. You can also use it to link from standard debugging format to applications running on an emulator or device.
Android Asset Packaging Tool (aapt)The aapt tool allows you to create .apk files containing binaries and Android application resources.
Android Interface Description Language (aidl)Allows you to generate code for the interprocessor interface.
sqlite3Enabled for convenience, this tool allows you to access SQLite data files created and used by Android applications.
TraceviewThis tool provides a graphical analysis of trace logs that can be generated from your applications.
mksdcardIt helps to create a disk image that you can use in the emulator to simulate the presence of an external memory card (for example, a Security Digital card).
dxThe dx tool rewrites the .class bytecode into the Android bytecode (stored in .dex files).
activityCreatorA script that generates Ant files that you can use to compile your applications. If you are developing Android applications using Eclipse, then you do not need to use this script.