andorid studio工程出现application初始化/找不到application类的异常问题

最近将本公司的代码工程打jar包发送给合作公司的过程当中，当我把自己工程中继承了android的application也打包进jar包之后，运行代码出现了这样的异常：

Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: Didn't find class "com.～～.MainApplication" on path: DexPathList[[zip file "/data/app/com.android.application-1.apk"],nativeLibraryDirectories=[/data/app-lib/com.android.application-1, /vendor/lib, /system/lib]]
                                                                           at dalvik.system.BaseDexClassLoader.findClass(BaseDexClassLoader.java:56)
                                                                           at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:497)
                                                                           at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:457)
                                                                           at android.app.Instrumentation.newApplication(Instrumentation.java:975)
                                                                           at android.app.LoadedApk.makeApplication(LoadedApk.java:511)
                                                                           at android.app.ActivityThread.handleBindApplication(ActivityThread.java:4317) 
                                                                           at android.app.ActivityThread.access$1500(ActivityThread.java:135) 
                                                                           at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1256) 
                                                                           at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102) 
                                                                           at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:136) 
                                                                           at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5017) 
                                                                           at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method) 
                                                                           at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:515) 
                                                                           at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:816) 
                                                                           at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:632) 
                                                                           at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method) 

折腾了很久，最后发现是因为

classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.3.0'

过高，参考了这个文章才发现：http://blog.csdn.net/chy555chy/article/details/52789696