I don’t know what it says about me that I haven’t yet installed the last stable release. Actually, I know exactly what it says about me… but anyway, back to the (non-stable) “Canary” release of Android Studio 3.0.

Headline features comprise a new suite of app performance profiling tools, support for the Kotlin programming language (for adding Kotlin code to existing Android app code), and increased Gradle build speeds for large projects.

Also catching the eye is support for Android Things. With version 3.0, you can start developing for the Internet of Things via a new set of templates in the New Project wizard and the New Module wizard.

Jamal Eason, Google’s Product Manager for Android, writes:

Android Studio 3.0 also tightly integrates with Android platform development with these additional key features: support for Instant App development, inclusion of the Google Play Store in the Android O emulator system images, and new wizards for Android O development. Overall, this first canary release of Android Studio 3.0 has 20+ new features.

We have been quietly iterating on many of these features as part of the Android Studio 2.4 Canaries. Today we are renumbering the release to Android Studio 3.0 after recognizing that we added many significant features, and that we had to introduce a rare breaking change in the Android Gradle Plugin to improve scalability and build times. If you want to target Android O, create an Instant App, start developing with the Kotlin language or use the latest in Android app performance tools to improve your app quality then you should download Android Studio 3.0 Canary 1 today.

You can read the full release notes »