Genymotion is an Android simulator that lets you create virtual replicas of Android systems and run them on your Windows computer. This handy tool lets you emulate a large number of Android devices and control simulated sensors like battery, GPS, and accelerometer. Therefore, testing Android applications will be both easy and effective, as comprehensive tests can be performed on a large amount of different emulated Android devices and in many different conditions. Relevant complex tests can be built and run also thanks to the powerful command line tools provided by Genymotion. In other words, testing an app on all the main devices available on the market is very easy and affordable when using Genymotion.
Genymotion is remarkably easy to use. The intuitive and straightforward interface makes creating virtual Android devices and running them a very simple job that can be performed with ease even by beginners without any problem. Installing it is also a simple matter. It can also be integrated with Eclipse and Android Studio platforms.
I also like its versatile displaying settings: it allows testing apps on full screen, using Open GL acceleration, or even using multiple screens. The only things that bothers me a little about Genymotion is the fact that it depends on Oracle VM VirtualBox and other apps and drivers in order to properly function and do its job. Anyway, it’s a minor aspect that can be easily ignored, especially considering the many advantages that it offers.
In conclusion, Genymotion is a really handy and powerful Android device emulator that lets you simulate a large variety of virtual Android devices and offers a really effective and convenient manner of testing Android apps.
v2.5 [Jun 18, 2015]
Genymotion 2.5.0 (June 18th, 2015)
New features
GMTool
gmtool is a command line tool allowing you to perform the following tasks from the command line:
Manage virtual devices and interact with them.
Register a license and display license information.
Configure Genymotion.
This is useful for automation. You can find more details on the GMTool documentation.
Only available with Indie and Business licenses.
Gradle Plugin
The Gradle plugin for Genymotion allows you to control your Genymotion instances from your build.gradle file. Learn more about how to use it right here
As continuous integration is now a key for professional development, we prepared an article to explain you how to use Genymotion with your Jenkins server.
Only available with Indie and Business licenses.
Corrections
Genymotion
Genymotion had to be restarted to take the credentials into account and log in the user. This issue has been fixed.
The adb reboot command on a running device was not working properly. This issue has been fixed.
On Mac OS X, when using a license, several software activations were consumed for the same machine. This issue has been fixed.
Genymotion could freeze when selecting a custom SDK path if a lot of file were present in the current directory. This issue has been fixed.
An upgraded virtual device cannot be factory reset anymore, but the error message was not clear enough. A specific error message has been added for this use case.
On Windows, Genymotion sometimes failed to connect to the virtual device. This issue has been fixed.
On Windows and Mac OS X, adb sometimes failed to connect to the virtual devices. This issue has been fixed.
Genymotion version and revision could not be selected in the about window. This issue has been fixed.
On Windows, Genymotion could not find vboxmanage.exe in some cases. This issue has been fixed.
Virtual devices could not start after using some VPN clients. This issue has been fixed.
Virtual devices
The INTERNET permission was not correctly handled, and applications without this permission could have internet access. This issue has been fixed.
