Android Emulator 28.0.0 is now available in the Canary and Dev channels.

This update includes the following changes:
  • Launching multiple instances of the same AVD: (Experimental, for advanced users) Previously, you were only able to launch one instance of a particular AVD at a time. The emulator can now launch multiple instances of the same AVD running concurrently. Instances started after the first instance are read-only; their changes to the guest virtual disk are discarded on exit.
    • To run multiple instances of the same AVD at the same time, launch the instances after the first instance with the following command line flag: -read-only
    • This feature is made possible by copying the QCOW2 files associated with the writable parts of the Android image. We have also bundled the qemu-img command line tool to allow you to pre-commit QCOW2 files before launching subsequent instances, to help with disk space issues.
    • We appreciate your feedback on any possible use case of multiple emulator instances that are part of your normal interactive or CI workflow. Please feel free to file or upvote issues in Issuetracker.
  • Improved emulator memory usage on long-running tests: If you are experiencing issues with emulator resource usage, please file bugs describing what happens and your use case. We are making resource usage of the emulator a priority for v28.
  • Location
    • Fixed an issue where the virtual GPS location would not be properly updated periodically unless the Extended Controls window was opened at least once.
    • The emulator can now update bearing along with latitude/longitude position. The magnetometer virtual sensor now adjusts itself dynamically to magnetic north based on inferring motion when playing back a GPX or KML file. 
  • Modem
    • The virtual modem now supports the model activity info "+MAI" query.
  • Graphics
    • If the emulator is launched with -no-window, the default is now Swiftshader, not guest rendering.
    • Fixed an issue that caused the emulator to not post the correct framebuffer if a non-default framebuffer object was bound at the time of eglSwapBuffers.
    • Added support for GL_EXT_color_buffer_half_float if available on host.
    • Fixed a crash in some situations when loading OpenGL ES 1.x apps from a snapshot.