What’s New in Android Studio Iguana and the Upcoming Jellyfish Preview?

Google has released Android Studio "Iguana," built on the 2023.2 IntelliJ platform, introducing crash reports linked to specific app versions and new policy warnings before submitting to Google Play.

The IDE is based on IntelliJ Community Edition, with its core updated to version 2023.2.

New features include GitLab integration, improved text search, and a more responsive user interface, but Iguana does not include the JetBrains AI Assistant, which remains exclusive to the commercial IDE.

Google notes that its own Studio Bot coding assistant is not available in Iguana; however, it will appear in the next version, code‑named "Jellyfish," currently available as a preview.

Jellyfish will extend the Google Studio Bot to developers outside the United States and will incorporate Gemini AI‑powered app templates. Developers in 180 countries (including the US but excluding the UK) can try the preview.

GitHub Copilot is already supported in Android Studio, with over 7 million installations across JetBrains IDEs.

Studio Bot usage depends on the Android Studio version and the developer’s region.

Beyond AI, Iguana adds the App Quality Insights tool, which integrates with Git version control to pull crash data from Firebase Crashlytics, linking stack traces directly to the offending code version.

According to Google, if a project’s SDK is flagged as a potential Google Play policy violation, Iguana will proactively notify developers, based on the Google Play SDK index.

Android Studio continues to emphasize Jetpack Compose. A new Compose UI inspection automatically checks UI responsiveness and accessibility. Progressive rendering in Compose Preview reduces off‑screen rendering quality to save memory.

Real‑time editing, an experimental feature, lets developers modify Jetpack Compose UI and see changes instantly on emulators or physical devices, saving considerable development time. This feature currently applies only to UI code, not to non‑visual code or app logic.

Download links:

Android Studio Iguana: https://developer.android.com/studio?hl=zh-cn

Android Studio Jellyfish preview: https://developer.android.com/studio/preview