Android 2.0 was the first to allow multiple Google accounts to be synced to one device—a feature we take for granted today.

Memory is the tyrant of this world. The emulated device typically runs with 96 MB of RAM. Consequently, the Dalvik VM heap size is minuscule (often 24-32 MB). Developing for Eclair forces a brutal efficiency: bitmaps must be recycled manually, AsyncTask (then a novel class) must be used to unblock the UI thread, and the dreaded OutOfMemoryError is a constant companion. The modern luxury of multidex or lazy loading of large libraries is non-existent. If an app exceeds the 64k method reference limit, it simply crashes. In this environment, writing clean code means writing compact code.

The modern Android 2.0 emulator introduced significant speed improvements, making it faster than many physical devices for deploying and running apps.