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As a mobile developer, the Android SDK is an integral part of your development environment, and as such it’s important for new developers to know how to download and install Android SDK or, the more popular, Android Studio. The main difference between the two is package size, and features. The Android SDK is the bare bones version of the package and it doesn’t include either of the two IDEs (interactive development environments): Android Studio or Eclipse. Android Studio includes its own IDE as well as a second IDE, known as Eclipse. If you elect to download Android Studio, on the other hand, your package will contain both IDEs, as well as the Android SDK. You may also want to learn how to make your android phone into a USB drive.
Don’t worry too much about this, as you can always download and install additional Android SDK packages later should you opt for the stand-alone SDK package as opposed to Android Studio.
Just for good measure, here’s how to install both. We’ll start with the bigger of the two packages, Android Studio. If you regularly use your phone for navigation, you should also read how google maps introduces offline mode for better navigation.
Before we get started, you’ll need to ensure that you have installed JDK 6 or higher (JDK7 is required for Android 5.0 and higher) on your PC.
Note: All of the following instructions, as well as the installation tutorials are for your PC. You can’t download or install Android Studio on your Android device.
To check your version, open terminal (OS specific details below) and type:
javac -version
If the JDK doesn’t show up, or you have an older version and would like to upgrade, download JDK here.
For example:
C:Program FilesJavajdk1.7.0_21
The actual tools and other SDK packages are stored outside of the directory that contains Android Studio. To access the tools directly, open the command prompt (Apps > Windows System > Command Prompt) and use the following to find them:
Users<user>sdk
If you get a warning saying that the file is damaged and should be moved to the trash, go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy and under the “Allow applications downloaded from” section select “Anywhere.” From here you can repeat Step 3 and install the program.
To access Android SDK tools from the command line (Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal):
/users/Library/Android/sdk/
/android-studio/bin/
studio.sh
android-studio/bin
First, download the stand-alone SDK files to your Mac, Windows or Linux PC. Next…
Note: All of the following steps will take place on your PC. You cannot install Android SDK on your phone or tablet.
via Android Developers