Android developers have gotten a nice surprise today: an Android 4.0 x86 image has been released for the platform's software development kit. For the vast majority of people developing on computers that use x86 processors, the update will let the emulator run at native speeds and with fewer bugs, since it will be running native x86 code rather than code from the ARM platform. Developers can install it by refreshing the SDK Manager, then selecting the x86 image under Android 4.0.3. Downloading the image may take some time due to high demand, though. For developers, this means a better system for building and testing apps. Intel's x86 architecture is ubiquitous, and this upgrade will complement the native x86 support that was added to the emulator back in March. End users won't see any direct changes, but anything that helps developers is certainly good news for all of us.