Swift has long lost its position as a proprietary language, but what could Apple be thinking as it makes its move to the Android platform?

Swift was introduced by Apple back in 2014 as a replacement for Objective-C. What you think of Objective-C depends on how well you know it, but the fact that Swift was designed to make programming easier gives you some idea of the problems in using starting to use it. Generally speaking, Swift has been well received by Apple-oriented programmers, but not so much by everyone else.

While many still think of Swift as an Apple-proprietary language, it was in fact open sourced back in 2015 and since then the language has gone its own way under the oversight of Swift.org. It has to be admitted that Apple still has significant influence, but it no longer controls the language. Hence we have to wonder what the reaction to the latest announcement of a Swift Android working group!

Swift can already be used under Linux and Windows, but it isn't particularly attractive to programmers working on these platforms - but Swift on Android is a different proposition. Using Apple's language on Android promises a cross-platform development environment that, if it worked, could be extremely attractive.

Currently official Android development is a mess and this makes it harder for the Swift group to achieve anything better. There have been moves to bring Swift to Android before but this is the first time Swift.org is officially backing the idea. Its stated aims are:

• 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

The tough items are supporting Android API levels and bridging to the Java SDK. If you take a look at the progress as indicated on GitHub you will find that the project is in its early days. The one thing that might make it possible for the casual user to consider Swift for Android is:

"Create a VSCode extension with support for adb push and remote debugging"

Given the terrible bloated mess that Android Studio currently is, this could be the edge that Swift needs. On the other hand Kotlin is an excellent language and I don't think Swift offers much advantage over it.

Knowing the size and complexity of the Android SDK, integrating it with Swift is not a project I would choose. I wish the working group well and I hope they succeed but I have serious doubts and I can't see Apple throwing any weight behind the project to make its language work for the opposition. 

• Mike James is author of  Android Programming in Kotlin: Starting With An App  and Android Programming In Java: Starting with an App, 3rd Ed (I/O Press) 

More Information

Announcing the Android Workgroup

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