There has existed a clear divide between Android and Apple over the past decade or so. Green bubbles vs. Blue bubbles, Safari vs. Chrome, and so many more differences have kept the two platforms separate. One of the most crucial differences between the two was the coding language that was used to develop their apps. Apple’s apps use the Swift language, while Android predominantly uses Kotlin and Java for its development.
That divide is about to come crashing down thanks to a new update to Apple’s programming language, Swift. With the release of Swift 6.3, there is a dedicated Software Development Kit (SDK) for Android, enabling developers to use the language to build Android apps. This is a monumental milestone, marking a significant step toward blurring the lines between Apple and Android development.
The official Swift changelog states that the new SDK equips developers with the tools to integrate Swift code into existing Android app projects written in Kotlin/Java. Moreover, you can also create native Android apps from scratch using Swift if you want. The cross-platform integration will probably be the more important feature for developers who build versions of their apps for both platforms.
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For the end-user, this update might not seem like a big deal, but it actually is. When developers can use the same coding language to develop both Android and iOS versions of an app, they can release updates much faster and generally synchronize features across both versions. The updates are more stable, and app development is often quicker to begin with.
Swift has also acknowledged the effort of the Swift Android Workgroup, which did the heavy lifting to carry this project from its initial stages to final release. The Android SDK was actually announced last year in an early preview, but the Workgroup apparently spent months moving it from the preview state to full release.
