Apple’s Open Source Language “SWIFT” Good Ugly or Bad to Develop Android App

What is SWIFT?

When it comes to Android app development services, Swift emerges as a noteworthy option, being a versatile programming language originally intended for iOS, OS X, and watchOS but also applicable for Android app development. Compared to C and Objective-C, Swift is renowned for its enhanced safety features and added functionalities that make programming more accessible and flexible. Swift's seamless integration with Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks provides developers with a powerful platform to test and optimize their software efficiently.

Swift, a powerful programming language developed by Apple, seamlessly integrates the Objective-C runtime, enabling the coexistence of C, Objective C, C++, and Swift code within a single project. Leveraging the LLVM compiler framework from Xcode 6, Swift embraces a protocol-oriented programming paradigm, emphasizing the significance of protocol extensibility that extends to both structs and classes, making it an ideal choice for development software companies seeking versatility and performance in their projects

Apple introduced Swift at its World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in 2014. In the following year's WWDC-2015, it was announced to be open source later that year, supporting iOS, OS X, and Linux. Since then, Swift has emerged as the future of iOS Development, thanks to Apple's efforts in building a robust foundation by enhancing their compiler, debugger, and framework infrastructure, and by implementing Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) to simplify memory management. iOS application developers now have a powerful and user-friendly language at their disposal, empowering them to create innovative and efficient apps for Apple's ecosystem.

The developers who are familiar with Objective C, Swift is enjoyable for them. Empowered with dynamic object model and inherits readability mix matches the interoperability of Objective-C, SWIFT provides seamless access to existing Cocoa frameworks and unifies the procedural and object-oriented portions of the language. It supports a playground feature that allows developers to experiment and see the results immediately, without the overhead of building and running an app.

The compiler and language, both are optimized for performance and development, respectively without compromising on either. Swift is highly scalable, you can create a simple program for a complex operating system. Having so much exciting features Swift comprise all is a fantastic way to write iOS, OS X, and watchOS apps.

SWIFT to be Used to Develop Android Apps

Apple has taken the decision to make SWIFT as an open source language. Its compiler is built on LLVM is a compiler infrastructure that leverages the concept of a retargetable compiler. Instead of generating machine code LLVM generates assembly code and then converts that intermediate representation of the actual code.

Here is the process in which the Swift compilers generate LLVM-IR (intermediate representation); LLVM also generates the ARM ELF file format used for the intermediate representation. Then the Android NDK, which allows for the use of native-code languages on Android, generates a binary linking against the generated object file. The file is packaged as an Android app.

Targeting Android

The absence of SwiftCore library is the biggest hurdle in front of developers. Currently, Apple is working for the libraries for iOS, OS X and Watch OS but will they do it for Android version?

Though SwiftCore library is not required for all the Swift code in a similar way like all C++ code requires the STL. So as long as we use the subset of Swift that doesn’t hit SwiftCore. Let’s take an example:

// add.swiftfunc addTwoNumbers(first: UInt8, second: UInt8) -> UInt8 { return first + second}

So basically the process it going to be threefold:

Ask the Swift compiler to generate some LLVM-IR

Use LLVM to generate ARM ELF from the intermediate representation

Use the Android NDK to generate a binary that links against the generated object file

Can We Develop Cross-Platform Apps with SWIFT?

Swift gives cutting edge advantage which is forcing developers to think whether they can use this programming language to write an app once for iOS and Android simultaneously. We at Sphinx Solutions like to use a unified code-base to bring cross-platform apps for faster development. We are innovating to do the same with Swift, which will give us another great option for our customers.

Conclusion

We’re excited about SWIFT. But it is under development stage, writing code for Android for a corporate application may be time-consuming and there are chances to compromise on various exciting features of Android. In the current scenario would you want to write apps for iOS and Android using Swift? Comment below or Tweet to us.