Installing Android Studio on Mac or Windows

Windows Problems
Several students found the emulator to be so slow on Windows that it was impossible to use. If that happens, use Genymotion instead. I added a note later in the project to show you when to do that.

Mac OS X Issue
After installing Android Studio, I couldn't start VMware Fusion virtual machines on my Mac--I got this error:
Could not open /dev/vmmon: No such file or directory.
This problem is caused by the Intel Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager (HAXM).
One workaround is to restart the Mac. After a restart, VMware Fusion works.
Another workaround is to unload the Intel HAXM module with this Terminal command:
sudo kextunload -b com.intel.kext.intelhaxm
There are several links at the end of this project explaining Intel HAXM.

What You Need for This Project

A computer with Mac OS X or Windows
A broadband Internet connection. I did this in a coffeehouse with a download speed of about 10 Mbps and it took about 15 min to download all the required files.

Purpose

Android Studio is Google's software development environment for Android.

It's essential for creating, debugging, and testing Android apps.

Downloading Android Studio

http://developer.android.com/sdk

Follow the instructions on the Web page to download and install Android Studio for your OS. The Mac version is 234 MB in size, but the Windows version is 828 MB.

Missing Java

If you are using a Mac:

Finish the install and launch Android Studio.
A box pops up, asking if you want to import settings from a previous installation. Accept the default selection refusing to do that.
The Setup Wizard launches. Click Next.

If you are using a PC, start the installation process.

In either case, you will probably see a screen saying that you need the Java SDK, as shown below.