Apple’s Swift programming language is adding support for Android app development, according to the Swift forums. The dedicated Android Working Group, within the Swift open-source project, is implementing the support.
Swift debuted in 2014 as a modern programming language, to be used to develop apps for iOS macOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS. The language was inspired by Objective-C, which it replaced as the primary development language on Apple Platforms. Swift employs modern programming-language theory concepts, presented as a simple, yet powerful syntax.
Currently, Android development is dominated by Kotlin, as it has since its 2017 debut.
Now formal support for Android will be added to the Swift development platform, allowing developers to use Swift to build applications for Google’s Android platform, using Google’s official tooling and infrastructure.
While Android developers have had ways to develop Android apps using Swift, it has bene enabled by a hodgepodge od third-party frameworks.
The Android Workgroup says it will have these initial goals:
The Android workgroup will:
- Improve and maintain Android support for the official Swift distribution, eliminating the need for out-of-tree or downstream patches
- Recommend enhancements to core Swift packages such as Foundation and Dispatch to work better with Android idioms
- Work with the Platform Steering Group to officially define platform support levels generally, and then work towards achieving official support of a particular level for Android
- Determine the range of supported Android API levels and architectures for Swift integration
- Develop continuous integration for the Swift project that includes Android testing in pull request checks.
- Identify and recommend best practices for bridging between Swift and Android’s Java SDK and packaging Swift libraries with Android apps
- Develop support for debugging Swift applications on Android
- Advise and assist with adding support for Android to various community Swift packages
Swift was originally created by Chris Lattner in 2010 for Apple Inc., debuting in June 2014 at Apple’s 2014 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), and the language has since been maintained by the open-source community. The Swift toolchain shipped in Xcode version 6.
