Announcing the Android Workgroup (opens in new tab)

(forums.swift.org)

32 pointsdesertmonad9mo ago16 comments

16 comments

You can use Swift on Android today with Skip Tools. https://skip.tools/ The Skip devs are founding members of the Swift on Android working group.

When using Skip Fuse, your Swift code compiles to 100% native Android ARM code.

They've also reimplemented ~60% of SwiftUI on Android, in an open-source library, SkipUI. https://github.com/skiptools/skip-ui SkipUI works way better than you'd think, and anyway, it's totally optional.

You can just write Swift against native Android APIs and it works fine.

bentocorp9mo ago

If Apple was really serious about combating the use of Electron and other cross-platform frameworks they would seriously support (and possibly even fund) a tool like this.

Despite the issues, if Swift and SwiftUI were available and compelling for Android then it may help to give Apple greater mindshare of developers.

akmarinov9mo ago

If Apple cared, they would’ve just included “no cross-platform apps” in their Appstore ToS and they’d be dead the next day.

That’s how Apple fights problems these days - gatekeeping and regulation.

They don’t care though, cross platform apps bring money the same way as any app

zerr9mo ago

Did they finish porting the core lib to Windows?

CharlesW9mo ago

Foundation (the Swift Standard Library), Dispatch (the concurrency library), and XCTest (the testing framework) are all available and functional on Windows.

zerr9mo ago

I remember some crucial parts were not implemented a few months ago.

4b11b49mo ago

Does this help LiveView Native efforts?

(naive question)

bestouff9mo ago

I always found non-native apps too out-of-place. Please use Swift on iOS and Kotlin on Android.

mattl9mo ago

Swift is just a programming language, I thought?

v5v39mo ago

Yes.

Unless I am also mistaken, they are seeking to make a supported language to android development.

Which will save mobile devs having to learn two languages, and also allow reuse of code.

2 more replies

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16 comments

dfabulich9mo ago

You can use Swift on Android today with Skip Tools. https://skip.tools/ The Skip devs are founding members of the Swift on Android working group.

When using Skip Fuse, your Swift code compiles to 100% native Android ARM code.

You can just write Swift against native Android APIs and it works fine.

bentocorp9mo ago

If Apple was really serious about combating the use of Electron and other cross-platform frameworks they would seriously support (and possibly even fund) a tool like this.

Despite the issues, if Swift and SwiftUI were available and compelling for Android then it may help to give Apple greater mindshare of developers.

akmarinov9mo ago

If Apple cared, they would’ve just included “no cross-platform apps” in their Appstore ToS and they’d be dead the next day.

That’s how Apple fights problems these days - gatekeeping and regulation.

They don’t care though, cross platform apps bring money the same way as any app

zerr9mo ago

Did they finish porting the core lib to Windows?

CharlesW9mo ago

Foundation (the Swift Standard Library), Dispatch (the concurrency library), and XCTest (the testing framework) are all available and functional on Windows.

zerr9mo ago

I remember some crucial parts were not implemented a few months ago.

4b11b49mo ago

Does this help LiveView Native efforts?

(naive question)

bestouff9mo ago

I always found non-native apps too out-of-place. Please use Swift on iOS and Kotlin on Android.

mattl9mo ago

Swift is just a programming language, I thought?

v5v39mo ago

Yes.

Unless I am also mistaken, they are seeking to make a supported language to android development.

Which will save mobile devs having to learn two languages, and also allow reuse of code.

2 more replies

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse