When we last left our heroes, AIDE was just released on the world, to the excited cries of developers who liked the idea of writing and testing their apps on the same device, but still probably couldn't replace their desktop development rig with a tablet. However, the app has been steadily making improvements and, as of the newest version (1.0.1), it's out of beta and will be moving to a freemium model.

[EMBED_YT]https://youtu.be/NGT9MqT3W2w

[/EMBED_YT]

The IDE will be available for free from the Play Store. However, if you'd like the option to publish commits to Git, publish an APK, or save files in larger projects (25+ Java files), the developers will ask for a one-time fee of $9.99. Originally, the company had planned on a subscription-based payment model, but decided to backpedal on that plan after less than 24 hours.

AIDE is quickly becoming a leader in Android development on Android devices. Of course, the phones and slates themselves still need to get more powerful and the form factors need to become more agreeable to developers before a product like this could become a mainstay. With the Nexus 7 quickly becoming the iconic Android tablet, it's likely that more developers will target the 7" form factor, which is not a very good size for prolonged development work. If the trend towards smaller Android tablets keeps up, it may become more difficult for something like AIDE to gain a foothold. Still, it's important work that could prove very beneficial to the future of the Android platform.

You can grab the free version of AIDE from the Play Store via the widget below. The $9.99 premium unlock code is available through an in-app purchase.

Source: Google Plus (1), (2)