Run Android 4.0 – Ice Cream Sandwich – today

EAT has covered how to run previous version of Android on your desktop and we’ve just spotted an updated SDK with access to the latest Ice Cream Sandwich-flavoured Android 4.0 emulator. So if you fancy getting ahead of the crowd we’ll show you how to install and try Android 4.0 on your desktop. A word of warning here, the emulation is very resource hungry. It not only creates a lot of heavy drive access but as it’s only single threaded it’s also very CPU demanding. Our ageing 2.9GHz Intel Core 2 Duo struggled somewhat, though it was usable. We imagine a more modern Core i5/7 with single-threaded turbo boost would help things run far more smoothly.

1. Get the Java JDK

This is all based around the Java Development Kit, so head over to Oracle and nab the Java Platform (JDK).

2. Get the Android SDK

Of course you’ll have to also grab the Android SDK for Android 4.0 this is release 14. Versions are available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. This is a fresh release, so if you still have the SDK from our previous endeavours you’ll still need to grab this and update the old version.

3. Get installed

You need to make sure the Android 4.0 (API14), Android SDK Tools and Android SDK Platform-tools are installed. You may also want to include previous versions, but try not to go mad, you won’t need them all, though it is very interesting looking at the original Android releases.

4. Set it up

To set up and run an Android emulator, select Tools > Manage AVDs… and click New. Give your device any old name but it really hates spaces and punctuation, use the pull-down menu to choose the type of Android device it should be (API Level 14) and finally give it some storage space via the SD Card section.For the correct tablet display change the Abstracted LCD Density to around 160 DPI, else it’ll assume a phone-type display.

The rest of the settings can be left to default values, however the Skin lets you adjust the resolution and you can install additional features via the Hardware > New… button, such as cameras. Click Create AVD to get this party started.

5. Hello World Android 4.0

A word of warning here, the emulation is very resource hungry. It not only creates a lot of heavy drive access but as it’s only single threaded it’s also CPU demanding. Our ageing 2.9GHz Intel Core 2 Duo struggled somewhat, though it was usable. We imagine a more modern Core i5/7 with single-threaded turbo boost would help things run far more smoothly.