Apple Meets Android: Swift Programming Language Gets an Android SDK

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The Swift project has released the first preview releases of the Swift SDK for Android. This marks the first major milestone achieved by the project's Android Workgroup. The releases are available as part of the Nightly Preview Builds.

The Android Workgroup began its work in June 2025 with the goal of establishing Android as an official platform for Swift as stable as iOS and the major desktop operating systems macOS, Linux, and Windows. While it has been possible to use Swift for Android development for some time, this requires many adjustments and additional tools like Scade.

Interface to Android

The Android Workgroup aims not only to provide a direct interface for APIs on Android's Java Virtual Machine (JVM) but also to handle tooling.

Currently, it is not possible to debug Swift applications on Android, among other things. The working group also wants to enable integration into the CI pipeline (continuous integration) for Android-Swift projects, including automated tests.

First Step

The Swift SDK for Android, now released, is the first step in this direction. It allows Swift packages to be ported to Android.

To create Android applications with Swift, in addition to the SDK, you need the toolchain for the host operating system on which the code is compiled and the Android NDK (Native Development Kit). A guide helps with getting started in Android development with Swift.

For further steps, the Android Workgroup has created the Android Vision Document. It also requests feedback in the Swift Forum.

Swift as an Alternative to Kotlin Multiplatform

The SDK is intended to enable cross-platform development for iOS and Android, as well as desktop operating systems, just like JetBrains Kotlin Multiplatform. Kotlin takes the opposite approach, as it seamlessly integrates with Android as a JVM language, but iOS integration is more difficult due to the absence of a JVM on Apple's mobile operating system.

JetBrains' programming language introduced its first approaches to cross-platform development in 2017: Kotlin 1.2 enabled cross-platform projects for JVM and JavaScript. Development for iOS was also on the Kotlin team's roadmap early on. It was a motivation for native applications without a JVM using Kotlin/Native, which JetBrains also first introduced in 2017.

In 2020, JetBrains launched the Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile (KMM) project, which, true to its name, primarily targeted the mobile sector and enabled cross-platform development for Android and iOS. The beta phase of KMM started in autumn 2022. JetBrains expanded the project over time and finally renamed it in July 2023 to Kotlin Multiplatform.

Online Conference on the Kotlin Programming Language

The online conference betterCode() Kotlin on February 24 and 25, 2026, will showcase new developments for the programming language and feature deep dives. The first day will focus on mobile and cross-platform development. The second day will present new features of the programming language and offer insights into the Koog framework for AI agents.

(rme)