While majority of Android emulators focus on enabling users to play Android games and use Android application on desktops PCs and laptops Genymotion is positioned as an alternative emulator that targets users who are looking for an ideal application development and testing platform. Genymotion is a more evolved and advanced version of the former AndroidVM and compared to it, it comes with new features and better design.
Genymotion comes to the forefront with its fast, simple, effective and smooth usage and performance, and runs smoothly with less system usage especially when compared to the other Android Studio emulators out there. For developers it is a great alternative to Android’s own virtual devices. It is compatible with Android SDK tools, Eclipse and Android Studio and you can use it on Android Studio and Eclipse by adding their plug-ins.
Developers of Genymotion say : “Genymotion is aimed at replacing the Android Emulator from Google not only for Android developers but also for people making Android apps demonstrations“.
Although mostly developers and app demonstrators prefer to use it, Geny is also used by users who just want to play some games and use their favorite apps on their Windows, MAC, Linux etc. operating systems.
Features
Genymotion Android Emulator lets developers develop higher quality apps by letting them simulate 3000+ virtual device configurations and every potential situation so as to guarantee a better user experience, code and test often and early before and after committing the code, to get rid of frustrating bugs, develop and test cases with Java API, and automate them with Command line tool or with their Gradle plugin during the development phase.
It enables developers to achieve broader virtual device test coverage, to test more accurately by automating as much as possible; reduce human driven bugs, make collaboration with stakeholders earlier, more often and easier thanks to its cloud technology.
Moreover it also allows developers to conduct Private Beta without being afraid of losing control over their source code. It lets customers try the applications of developers right from their websites, and enables customers to use these apps on any device – mobile or desktop. Thus promotion of apps in style is made possible.
Genymotion can use your laptop webcam as the video source for your Android camera.
It lets you test your website in various Android browsers: Webkit for Android, Firefox for Android and many more.
You can test your app with different charge levels and find out how it handles various power scenarios.
It has GPS widget support for your apps based on geo-location features.
It has Java API so you can automate the testing of your app under different scenarios by playing with your sensor values.
Its GMTool enables very fast loading times compared to actual devices and you can control Geny from the command line.
It has network, SMS and call emulation, device identifier modifiers, cloning and reset functions, unlimited screencast to share with your team; it can replicate gyroscope or multi-touch events from any Android device connected to your computer, and more.
Up-to-date Android versions it provides let you test the compatibility of your applications with newer device models.
Minimum system requirements for Genymotion are as follows:
OpenGL 2.0 capable video card, with an up-to-date driver. Intel HD Graphics 4000 (2012), Nvidia GeForce 500 Series (2011), ATI Radeon HD 6000 Series (2011);64 bit CPU, with VT-x or AMD-V capability, enabled in BIOS settings; RAM memory: at least 2GB; 1024 x 768 pixels screen resolution; 100MB free-space. (These are minimum needs, and may not be sufficient for some use cases.)
Microsoft Windows 7, 8/8.1, 10 (32 or 64 bit); Mac OS X 10.9 or above; Linux Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) (64 bit) or above; Linux Debian 8 (Jessie) (64 bit); Linux Fedora 24 (64 bit);
You must also install Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.0.28 which you do during the installation of the emulator.
Download and Installation
You can download Genymotion from here https://www.genymotion.com/account/create/, after creating an account and logging in. After clicking the exe. file, choose the destination folder and Click Next /Install until the process is over.
After the installation, open Genymotion from the shortcut created. Select Yes on the popping window and add a new virtual device. Select new virtual device. Sign in with your account info and you are going to see available virtual devices list. You can see a number of tablet or smart phone models with different screen resolutions here. Add one (be sure you have enough space if the list doesn’t appear). A new window will open to create a new virtual device; enter a name and then download and deployment process for your virtual device will be started. The image download may take a while, if you have a slow Internet connection.
Then click finish to close the window and your virtual device will be visible in the Genymotion main window. Now, start your virtual device by clicking the triangle play icon and you’ll see the home screen of your new virtual device soon.
Now you can deploy your Android application by either drag-and-dropping the application APK file into the virtual device window or running this command: adb install <application name>.apk. You can also download and install the application directly from the virtual device using a web link.
Google Play Store is not available in the emulator, but you can sideload gapps from various sources. Google apps may require the installation of “Genymotion-ARM-Translation.zip”. If you get an error about it , download it from XDA forumshttps://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2528952 here.
For a more detailed how-to about installing Google Play Services, you may refer to the tutorial here: https://inthecheesefactory.com/blog/how-to-install-google-services-on-genymotion/en
Pricing:
Whereas everyone can try and use Genymotion free, indie contractors need to pay 136 dollars a year and business users need to pay 412 dollars a year per person. Price for the enterprise platform is not stated openly, but this edition comes with cloud features, on premise license features and premium support features.
To sum up, Genymotion is a fast and effective Android emulator especially for testers and developers of Android applications.
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