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Add Android blog post answering common questions and sharing more links and info (#1249)
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‎_data/authors.yml‎

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@@ -243,6 +243,10 @@ parkera:
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github: parkera
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about: "Tony Parker manages teams at Apple working on Foundation, Swift packages, and the Swift Standard Library."
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android-workgroup:
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name: The Android workgroup
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about: "The Android workgroup works toward furthering Swift on Android."
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diversity-workgroup:
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name: The Diversity in Swift workgroup
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about: "The Diversity in Swift workgroup is a group of volunteers working to make our community more approachable and inclusive."

‎_posts/2025-12-18-exploring-the-swift-sdk-for-android.md‎

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---
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layout: new-layouts/post
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published: true
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date: 2025-12-18 10:00:00
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title: "Exploring the Swift SDK for Android"
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author: android-workgroup
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category: "Developer Tools"
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---
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Since the announcement of [the preview Swift SDK for Android](/blog/nightly-swift-sdk-for-android/),
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the Android workgroup has seen a lot of interest in how it works and what's next.
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Please read on for some answers to common questions about the technology and its
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future, and try out the new Swift 6.3 SDK nightly previews.
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## How Swift works on Android
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Swift compiles directly to native machine code on Android, the same way it does on most
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other platforms. This approach produces similar performance to C and C++ code built using the
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Android Native Development Kit (NDK), while achieving a happier balance between performance,
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safety, and usability. To make this possible, Swift apps on Android bundle a native runtime
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that implements many of its features, including its standard library and core
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libraries, like Dispatch and [Foundation](/blog/foundation-preview-now-available/).
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However, since most Android APIs are only made available through Java and Kotlin,
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Swift must call into the Android Runtime (ART); that's where the [Java interoperability
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project's](https://github.com/swiftlang/swift-java) `jextract` and `wrap-java`
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tools come in. These tools automatically create bindings that enable you to call
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Swift from Java or go the other way using the Java Native Interface (JNI), which
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allows Swift to seamlessly integrate with the Android platform.
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The [`jextract` tool gained a JNI mode this summer](/blog/gsoc-2025-showcase-swift-java/):
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you can watch its author Mads Odgaard's [Server-Side Swift Conference talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOH6V1IvTAc)
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and try out the [example weather app](https://github.com/swiftlang/swift-android-examples/tree/main/swift-java-weather-app) he submitted in the Android examples repository.
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## Swift on Android in production
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While work is still ongoing on official Java interoperability, Android apps built using Swift
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have been in production for many years employing homegrown Java interop, with these apps
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collectively downloaded millions of times. Here are some notable examples:
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- [Spark](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.readdle.spark) - A popular email client using Swift to share code between mobile iOS/Android and desktop macOS/Windows versions
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- [flowkey](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flowkey.app) - An interactive piano learning app built with Swift for Android for almost a decade
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- [MediQuo](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mediquo.main) - A healthcare app leveraging Swift for cross-platform development
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- [Naturitas](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.naturitas.android) - An organic products marketplace running Swift in production
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## Ongoing work
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Grassroots community efforts to run Swift on Android [began as soon as the language source was opened in 2015](https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-dev/Week-of-Mon-20151207/000171.html),
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and continue to this day. The [Android project board](https://github.com/orgs/swiftlang/projects/17) lists areas the workgroup determines important,
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such as easy debugging, now a high priority for us. While it [may work for small examples](https://github.com/swiftlang/llvm-project/issues/10831),
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we need to expand and test it more and make it easy to configure and access. That will likely
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mean tying the debugger and Swift Language Server Protocol tool, [sourcekit-lsp](/blog/gsoc-2025-showcase-code-completion/),
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into Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) like [Visual Studio Code](/blog/gsoc-2025-showcase-swiftly-support-in-vscode/)
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and Android Studio, another issue on our board.
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[An Android workflow](https://github.com/swiftlang/github-workflows/pull/172) was
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added to the official Swift workflows for GitHub months ago, allowing you to easily
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try building your Swift packages with the Swift SDK for Android, and work is underway to let you
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[run your tests in an Android emulator](https://github.com/swiftlang/github-workflows/pull/215)
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too.
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We are looking to onboard more contributors and have set up a [video call this
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weekend](https://forums.swift.org/t/swift-on-android-new-contributors-call/83729) to discuss getting started.
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We hope to make these contributor calls a recurring event moving forward, as more people
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pitch in to improve these Swift tools themselves.
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## Sharing Swift across platforms: logic vs UI
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Swift allows you to target many platforms with the same business logic, and Swift
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on Android expands that much more.
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As we shared in [our draft vision document](https://github.com/swiftlang/swift-evolution/blob/807b844be42db582e434d1667fc907ae7a7a8775/visions/android.md),
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a prominent use case we’re focused on is sharing core business logic, algorithms, and data models across applications.
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The workgroup is not providing a single GUI solution, however a number of nascent community projects have approached the challenge in different ways.
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Our [recent post in the Swift forums](https://forums.swift.org/t/swift-gui-toolkits-for-android/83337)
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lists a handful of popular and in-progress options.
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While the workgroup has not validated the claims on individual projects, we plan to add
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more info on using compatible GUI tools with the Swift SDK for Android in the coming months.
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## Android API versioning
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Until recently, Swift on Android did not support targeting multiple Android API levels
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in the same app, but recent preview releases bring the familiar `@available`
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attribute and `#available` runtime check that you know from Apple platforms to Android:
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```swift
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#if canImport(Android)
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import Android
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import Dispatch
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#endif
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@available(Android 33, *)
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func backtrace() {
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withUnsafeTemporaryAllocation(of: UnsafeMutableRawPointer.self, capacity: 1) { address in
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_ = backtrace(address.baseAddress!, 1)
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}
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}
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@main
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struct ExecutableDemo {
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static func main() {
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#if os(Android)
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print("Hello from Android API 28 or later")
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if #available(Android 33, *) {
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// The following code is only run on Android 33+ devices.
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backtrace()
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print("Hello from Android API 33+")
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}
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#endif
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}
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}
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```
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Try this new feature on Android and let us know how it works for you.
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## Learn from the community
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Those using Swift on Android for many years have been sharing their experiences,
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as founding contributors like [Readdle](https://readdle.com/blog/swift-for-android-our-experience-and-tools)
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and [flowkey](https://medium.com/@ephemer/why-we-put-an-app-in-the-android-play-store-using-swift-96ac87c88dfc)
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have written about their work for the last decade.
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The Left Bit's Pierluigi Cifani [recently wrote about their experiences](https://forums.swift.org/t/thoughts-on-swift-for-android/80961),
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gave [a great talk at NSSpain 2025 a couple months ago](https://youtu.be/EIGl6GOo210),
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and was [interviewed by Swift Toolkit last month](https://www.swifttoolkit.dev/posts/dc-pier).
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A [community member recently contributed an example app](https://github.com/swiftlang/swift-android-examples/tree/main/hello-cpp-swift)
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that builds C++ using CMake and links it with Swift, using Swift's automated JNI bridging
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to Java instead.
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## Swift 6.3 SDK nightly previews
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Finally, we are happy to announce that [an official Swift 6.3 SDK CI](https://ci.swift.org/job/oss-swift-6.3-package-swift-sdk-for-android/)
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has been set up, and it is producing [nightly preview releases of the Swift 6.3 SDK for Android](/install/macos/#swift-sdk-buindles-dev).
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Please follow the [Getting Started guide](/documentation/articles/swift-sdk-for-android-getting-started.html)
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to install and use it.
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Swift on Android has been a community effort for the last decade, growing
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from that initial patch to apps in production and an active group of developers.
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Try out the new preview releases of the Swift 6.3 SDK for Android and help us
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make it even better!

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