Swift by Apple is coming to Android for the first time
Apple's Swift programming language is set to make deeper inroads into Android development, with the formation of a new working group aimed at establishing Android as an officially supported platform. The announcement marks a significant shift for the company, which has historically kept its technologies focused on its own ecosystem.Launched in 2014, Swift was originally designed for Apple's platforms, including iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. Over time, support for Windows and Linux was added, and now the language is expanding once again — this time to Android.
advertisementThe newly created Android Working Group within the Swift project will focus on building and maintaining official support for Android. This includes integrating Android into the main Swift distribution and removing the need for unofficial or downstream patches previously required to get Swift running on Android devices.
In the announcement, the group has outlined several key objectives. It states that this move aims to improve Android compatibility in the official Swift toolchain and adapt core Swift packages, such as Foundation and Dispatch, to work more effectively within Android development patterns. It will also collaborate with Swift's Platform Steering Group to define levels of platform support.The announcement also mentions that it will develop support for debugging Swift apps on Android and facilitate better integration between Swift and Android's Java SDK. It is also supposed to assist community Swift packages in adding Android compatibility.advertisementAlthough developers have been able to run Swift on Android using third-party tools such as Scade, the experience has been limited and lacked official support. The new working group aims to streamline the development process and provide robust tools, documentation, and testing capabilities to ensure a more reliable developer experience.Interest in using Swift beyond Apple platforms is not new. Google had previously explored integrating Swift into its experimental Fuchsia OS, and there were early reports suggesting the company had evaluated Swift for Android app development. However, Kotlin has remained Google's preferred language for Android since its official adoption in 2017.The formation of this working group indicates a more serious effort to bring Swift to Android in an official capacity, potentially offering developers an alternative to Kotlin and Java for building Android applications.As part of the broader Swift open-source project, the Android Working Group will operate under the Swift community's governance, with contributions expected from both Apple engineers and external developers. There is currently no timeline for when full Android support will be finalised, but the effort is now underway.- Ends
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