Note: this is meant for OS X El Capitan

1. Make sure you’re in a location on your drive of your preference.

       $ cd ~/your_preferred_directory
       
   

2. Download and install MeteorJS on your machine. As of this writing, the official instructions give us a single simple command:

       $ curl https://install.meteor.com/ | sh
       
   

3. Download the Android SDK tools.

       $ curl -0 http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r24.4.1-macosx.zip > android-sdk_r24.4.1-macosx.zip
       
   

   Note! This will download the 24.4.1 release. There may have been newer resources since the time of writing. To get the latest version instead, head over to the Android developers website and download the latest version for OS X.

4. Extract the file just downloaded.

       $ unzip android-sdk_r24.4.1-macosx.zip
       
   

5. Edit your PATH and bash environment. To do this, please run:

       $ vim ~/.bash_profile
       
   

6. Paste in the following text at the END of the file:

       # for working with android
       export ANDROID_HOME="${HOME}/your_preferred_directory/android-sdk-macosx"
       export PATH="${HOME}/FOSS/your_preferred_directory/tools:${PATH}"
       export PATH="${HOME}/FOSS/your_preferred_directory/platform-tools:${PATH}"
       
   

   Extra notes and tips:

   • Be sure to change “your_preferred_directory” above into the actual directory name you had used as download location.
   • To get out of vim after you’re done, hit the Escape key, then type: :x and hit Enter

7. Make those changes you made above available in your command line environment.

       $ source ~/.bash_profile
       
   

8. Run the Android SDK manager tool.

       $ android
       
   

   

9. Download and install the required Android SDK packages for cordova simulation and development. As of this writing, these are:

   1. Tools\Android SDK Build-tools v22.0.1
   2. Android 5.1.1 (API 22)\SDK Platform
   3. Android 5.1.1 (API 22)\Intel x86 Atom_64 System Image
   4. Extras\Intel x86 Emulator Accelerator (HAXM installer)
   

10. Now, we need to still actually install the Emulator-Accelerator.

        $ cd ~/your_preferred_directory/extras/intel/Hardware_Accelerated_Execution_Manager
        $ open .
        
    

    This will open up the directory in a new Finder window.

    Now double click and follow all instructions to install IntelHAXM_1.1.5.dmg

11. Let’s create an emulator device.

        $ android avd
        
    

    

    Hit the Create… button

    Feed in a Name of your choice, a Device of your preference, Choose a “Target” (API 22), a “Skin”, and any other settings you need to change.

    

    Hit OK. Close the AVD window.

12. Now run the adb server

        $ adb start-server
        
    

13. Make sure to enable “Developer Options” in your phone, and enable “USB Debugging”. Details on how to do that are available here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/16707217/443219

14. We’re finally ready!

    Connect your Phone with a Data-capable USB cable (not a cheap one that only transmits power).

    Make sure that the phone appears in the list of devices when you run:

        $ adb devices
        
    

    If not, you’ll need to debug that first - your device is not being recognized by the ADB server on your laptop.

    cd to your Meteor project directory, and run

        $ meteor run android-device
        
    

    Rejoice as your app appears on the Android phone!

All this is incredibly convoluted. Can’t wait for the time when it’s all much more straightforward!