Android development environment on OSX

GeX · 29 Jan 2013 at 11:22

Hi all.

I'm looking to sort out my Android development environment on my MacBook Pro. I have developed Android apps in the past but have done so on my (now retired) Windows 7 machine using the usual Eclipse + ADT toolset. I found Eclipse functional, if not a little clunky at times.

I've begun looking into other IDEs, and saw IntelliJ IDEA linked from the Android developer pages.

Has anyone used it? Is it any better / worse / any reason to use it over Eclipse? I guess an advantage that Eclipse has is that that is what we'll be using shortly at work for Android dev - but if IntelliJ IDEA has improvements that are worth using, then I really don't mind using two differing development environments.

Failing that, any other suggestions?

agent_paul · 30 Jan 2013 at 19:59

I haven't done any android dev as of yet but I do use intellij as my main ide. It just blows eclipse out of the water. The interface is just so much nicer and does the job really well.

Like you I found eclipse really clunky and finding things took ages.

If you can fork out the £100 or so for intellij. Its just so worth it

DodgeeRascal · 31 Jan 2013 at 09:20

The main two IDEs i've used are Intellij (free version) and Eclipse.

I havn't used Intellij for adroid development, just Java EE, but I agree with agent paul. Much prefer it to Eclipse and will use it given the choice.

topbanana · 31 Jan 2013 at 09:44

I believe you can use the free IntelliJ version for Android dev

GeX · 31 Jan 2013 at 10:19

topbanana said:
I believe you can use the free IntelliJ version for Android dev

You can indeed.

Thanks for the replies guys.

In the end, I setup Eclipse just to get an old project built - but I'll install IntelliJ tonight as well and get a feel for it. All the feedback I've seen suggests the same as you've said here. It's just 'better'.