Apple’s Swift project founds “Android Working Group”

In addition to MacOS, Apple’s programming language can already be used under Windows and Linux – the group is also trying to establish the system for server environments. However, what is more bad than right has so far is the development of Android projects with Swift. Although this is quite possible, it is due to a certain patchery that prevents many developers from deviating from Kotlin and other languages ​​usual under Android. The Swift project financed by Apple now wants to change that-at least a bit: it will be one over eleven years after it was founded Android Working Group (AWG) for Swift give that the coordination serves.

So far a hopeless patch

As the Swift project announced, it has several goals. The official support of Android is to be improved and preserved as a Swift target platform. Downstream or out-of-trree patches would then no longer have to be. Core packages of Swift such as Dispatch and Foundation should be better adapted to Android conversions. The AWG will also work with the central platform Steering Group to improve general platform support for Android. “Official support” at a good level would be a possible result.

Until then, however, there is still a lot to do. There is none yet Ci With Android tests in pull-request checks. It must also be determined which Android API levels and architectures should be available in Swift.

Adjustments also with community packages

Libraries must be adapted and the bridging between Swift and the Android Java SDK improved. In addition, it has not even been officially possible to debugg Swift apps under Android. The AWG also plans to adapt various community packages for Swift for Android.

Interestingly, there was speculation a few years ago that Google might also be interested in Swift, but then they decided on Kotlin. Tools such as Scade used to get native swift apps on Android. The official support is likely to improve all of this, although it is unclear how quickly the AWG can go to work. The team is still looking for support from the scene.