This is part of a series of posts on using Mirror to rapidly build your app’s user interface. Mirror lets you see immediately how your layouts and resources look on your phone or tablet, without needing to code up mock adapters or constantly re-install your app. For a general overview of how to use Mirror, check out the Mirror Tutorial.

Gradle is a nice build system and there are many benefits to using it for Android builds. However, a common complaint about Gradle is that build times are much longer than they were with the old ant-based built system. Specifically, building and installing apps from Android Studio or IntelliJ involves a lot more waiting than developers are used to compared to Eclipse and ADT. Whether you’re using Android Studio or Gradle on the command line, there are a few things you can do to speed your builds up.