If you’ve ever gotten into Android development, you’ve probably heard of Kotlin. It is a language designed by JetBrains that is fully interoperable with Java. You can create apps for Android, web, and iOS in it, and Google actually says it’s the preferred language for app developers to write in. Kotlin Multiplatform is now entering beta, which will allow developers to build for both Android and iOS from the same software source.
As for the changes being made, JetBrains didn’t give us much to work with. “With this Beta release, we have updated the memory management approach to provide a consistent experience between Android and iOS goals – users now have the right balance of being able to reuse existing Kotlin code and access to platform-specific features,” says Roman Ilizarov, Head of the Kotlin Project. Beta still has leftovers to carry out, and serving them is our main priority.”
There are a number of major benefits to Kotlin Multiplatform, the biggest of which is a unified database between both Android and iOS. This includes the same code base for networking, data storage, analytics, and all the other logic from within the app. On top of that, the logical stuff is preserved, but you’ll still keep the smoothness of the original code when it comes to having full access to both Android and iOS SDK. There are also tools for cross-platform development already within Android Studio.
“Where other technologies exclude or completely replace the development of platform-specific applications, Kotlin Multiplatform is complementary to existing platform-specific technologies and geared towards replacing platform-neutral business logic. It is a new tool in the toolbox rather than a toolbox replacement,” said David Henry and Mel Yehia of Netflix.
There are a few Sample projects Take a look for inspiration on how to integrate Kotlin Multiplatform into your projects, making development easier when building for both Android and iOS at the same time. This beta version appears to be primarily a stability improvement, but we’re looking forward to more changes that may emerge during the Kotlin Multiplatform lifecycle.
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