Android Development Environment for Mac OSX

I expected this process to be a lot more tedious than it turned out to be BUT that is always the case in the beginning of most things, isn’t it? well at least for me:-) These are the steps that I took to setup an Android development environment on my Mac OS X 10.6.6

1. Download and Install the latest version of the Android SDK for Mac OS X(Intel). Once installed, make a note of the SDK location on your Mac as you will need it later.
2. If you don’t already have it, grab JDK 5 or JDK 6.
3. Download and Install Eclipse IDE. The recommended version is ‘Eclipse Classic’ (3.5.1 & higher) but you can pick either ‘Eclipse IDE for Java Developers’ (my choice) or ‘Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers’. I have worked with Eclipse before and chose it out of habit but one of the other IDE’s that supports Android SDK versions is IntelliJ IDEA.
4. Install the Android Development Tools (ADT) Plugin for Eclipse IDE. This plugin is recommended as it gives a powerful extended and integrated environment in which to build Android applications. ps: you will need that SDK location from the first step when configuring the ADK Plugin.
5. Use the Android SDK and the AVD Manager in Eclipse to download the necessary components into your development environment. Within Eclipse, select Window > Android SDK and AVD Manager > Available Packages > Android Repository. To develop an Android application, you only need to download one Android platform and SDK Platform tools for the latest platform. Here is a list of the recommended components – I downloaded all including documentation to make it easier to work offline.
6. You are DONE with installation – it’s time to Play! Best place to start Hello World Tutorial. Enjoy:-D