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X ships rebuilt Android app after year-long rewrite
X has released a rebuilt Android app after nearly a year of work, promising faster performance and a stronger foundation for new features.
Image: TechCrunch
After nearly a year of work, X has released a rebuilt Android app that the company says is faster, smoother, and more reliable than the previous version.
The Elon Musk-owned social network said the new app was built from scratch, with improvements to loading, scrolling, notifications, and more. In a post on X, the company’s engineering account said it had “completely rebuilt the Android X app from the ground up” and modernized the app’s foundation so “everything just feels better.”
The overhaul has been in the works since last year. In August, X head of product Nikita Bier said the company was assembling an Android “dream team” to reshape the experience. Later that fall, he said X had one of its biggest weeks ever for Android downloads in October, helping make the rewrite a priority.
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Bier called the release “one of the largest engineering projects” in the company’s history. He also said the app was rebuilt on a clean Kotlin + Jetpack Compose stack, not simply updated. Responding to questions about whether Grok played a role, an X post from Grok said the rewrite was a “human engineering feat” by the X team, while adding that Grok helps developers code faster daily.
According to Bier, the bigger benefit is speed of development.
“It’s faster, smoother and more reliable. But most of all: it will enable us to build new features at lightning speed.”
That matters as X has been rolling out new products in recent months, including X Money and X Chat, which received their own standalone apps. The new Android release could also help X win back users in markets where Android dominates, especially after a long stretch of neglect. At one point last year, Android issues were severe enough that the X app could not even load posts when users tapped links.
There are still gaps. Bier said X is still working on:
- Better performance on older Android devices
- Support for Spaces, X’s live audio feature
- Android versions of the new video editor, react-with-video, cashtags, and custom timelines
Existing Android users can get the new version by updating the app through the Google Play Store.
Computing Editor
Tomas lives in the terminal. He covers chips, laptops, and operating systems with a focus on performance and efficiency. He reads kernel changelogs the way other people read fiction, and he's always on the hunt for the perfect mechanical keyboard switch. If it processes data, Tomas has an opinion on it.
via TechCrunch
