Apple to Expand Swift Language Support to Android; Sets Up Android Working Group

Apple is officially working on supporting its Swift programming language on Android, the company announced earlier this week. While apps for iOS and Android are usually written in Swift and Kotlin, respectively, the iPhone maker’s attempts to support Swift on Android could offer an alternative for development of apps on Google’s operating system. Apple already supports Swift on Windows and Linux, and it has established an Android Workgroup to maintain the operating system as a supported platform for the Swift programming language.

Swift Says Android Working Group Membership Open to All Community Members

On Thursday, Swift Core team member Mishal Shah announced the establishment of the Swift Android Workgroup in a forum post. According to the Swift website, the workgroup will promote the use of the programming language to create applications for Android. It currently has 10 members, and membership is “open to anyone wishing to contribute.”‘

The newly established workgroup will perform several tasks listed out on the Swift website. These include maintaining and improving the support for Swift on Android, while working with the Platform Steering Group to establish platform support levels, and adding support for debugging Android apps written using Swift.

Workgroup member Marc Prud’hommeaux (@marcprux) explained that one use case would be the ability to develop Android and iOS apps simultaneously, using a shared codebase. Swift can actually be used to build the entire application stack, while using a native user interface for Android and iOS.

It’s worth noting that tools like Skip already exist, and allow developers to build native apps for Android simultaneously, using the same Swift and SwiftUI code that they use to develop their iOS apps. The service automatically develops the code for Android (and its interface) using Jetpack Compose, allowing developers to offer optimised and “native” performance on an iPhone and Android smartphone.

With Swift officially maintaining Android as a supported platform, tools like Skip should get even better, while developers should find it much easier to build apps for Android that were written in Swift. Developers can follow the workgroup’s efforts via the Swift for Android GitHub roadmap, and even contribute to the project.