At Google's annual Google I/O conference on Wednesday, the company advanced its software development tooling, revealing an Android developer tool and multiple other enhancements for developers, including PHP cloud capabilities.
While the company did tout having had 900 million activations of Android, there was no word of any anticipated Android 5.0 "Key Lime Pie" version of the mobile OS. Still, the company unveiled Android Studio, a development tool based on the community edition the JetBrains IntelliJ Idea IDE for Java. Android Studio is being offered in an early-access preview form. It features Android-specific refactoring and Lint tools to catch performance issues.
Google also is adding five features, including optimization tips and app translation service, to the Google Play Developer Console, which enables the publishing of applications directly to users of Android-compatible phones. "This service allows you to get professional translations directly into the developer console," said Ellie Powers, product manager for Google Play. Also added were usage metrics; revenue graphs, to summarize application revenues, including on a country-by-country basis; and a beta testing and staged rollouts capability.
Google also announced PHP for App Engine, which adds a PHP runtime to the App Engine cloud. This has been the most-requested feature sought for the platform, Google said.
Finally, looking to improve capabilities in its Chrome browser, the company previewed the VP9 video codec, pledging faster video-streaming performance. "It's great to see YouTube will roll out support for VP9 later this year," said Linus Upson, vice president of engineering for Chrome.
This story, "Android tooling? Yes. New Android OS? No," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.