Fortunately, we automate all our deployments to the app store and playstore with fastlane.

Reading through this thread it sounds like there are probably some config options to improve the emulator, but I cannot find a way to speed up studio vs xcode.

It takes < 3 seconds to launch xcode and open a source file. Studio takes 15 seconds to open and even then it takes another 5-10 seconds before the UI actually unlocks.