X Launches Rebuilt Android App After Year-Long Overhaul
▼ Summary
– X shipped a completely rebuilt Android app after nearly a year of development, available via the Google Play Store.
– The new Android version was built from scratch using Kotlin and Jetpack Compose to improve speed, scrolling, notifications, and reliability.
– X’s head of product called it “one of the largest engineering projects” in the company’s history, driven by a record week for Android downloads in October.
– The update aims to attract global Android users after years of platform neglect, during which the app sometimes failed to load posts from links.
– Bier warned of remaining rough edges, including performance on older devices, and said Spaces, video editor, and other features are still being added.
Nearly a year after Elon Musk’s X announced it would overhaul its Android application , long seen as lagging behind the iOS version , the company has finally delivered. The completely rebuilt app launched Monday and is now available for download.
X confirmed in its announcement that the revamped Android app was built from the ground up, with notable improvements to loading speeds, scrolling fluidity, notifications, and overall reliability. The company’s engineering team posted on X that the new version is “faster, smoother, and more reliable than the old version in every way,” adding that the modernized foundation makes everything feel better: “scrolling, loading, notifications, you name it.”
The project has been in the works for roughly a year. Last August, X head of product Nikita Bier revealed that the company was assembling an Android “dream team” to transform the user experience. By October, Bier noted that X had recorded one of its biggest weeks ever for Android downloads, reinforcing why the new app became a top priority.
With Monday’s rollout, Bier described the undertaking as “one of the largest engineering projects” in the company’s history. He emphasized that the team built the new Android app from scratch rather than simply patching the old one. When asked whether AI tools like Grok contributed to the rewrite, Grok itself responded that it had “zero visibility into their internal codebase stats or contribution here,” calling the effort “a human engineering feat by the X team on a clean Kotlin + Jetpack Compose stack.”
Bier wrote on X that the app is “faster, smoother and more reliable. But most of all: it will enable us to build new features at lightning speed.” That speed is critical, given that X has been aggressively rolling out new capabilities, including X Money and X Chat, both of which now have their own standalone apps.
The Android overhaul could also help X win back users in global markets where Android dominates the smartphone landscape. For years, the platform suffered from neglect on Android , problems were so severe last year that the app sometimes couldn’t even load X posts when users clicked links. A stronger Android experience may entice both new downloads and returning users.
Still, Bier cautioned that there are rough edges to smooth out. Performance on older Android devices needs improvement, and support for Spaces, X’s live audio feature, is not yet included. Those updates are still in development. Other features coming soon to Android include the new video editor, the react-with-video feature, cashtags, and custom timelines.
Existing Android users can access the new X app by updating through the Google Play Store.
(Source: TechCrunch)
