Kotlin Multiplatform enters beta for cross-platform development

If you’ve ever gotten into Android development, you’ve probably heard of Kotlin. It’s a language designed by JetBrains that is fully interoperable with Java. You can build applications for Android, the web, and iOS in it, and Google actually says that it’s the preferred language for app developers to write in. Now Kotlin Multiplatform is entering beta, which will allow developers to build for both Android and iOS from the same codebase.

As for what changes are made, JetBrains hasn’t given us much to work with. “With this Beta release, we’ve updated the memory management approach to provide a consistent experience between Android and iOS targets — now users have the right balance of being able to reuse their existing Kotlin code and being able to access platform-specific features,” says Roman Elizarov, Kotlin Project Lead. “The Beta still has leftovers to be implemented, and delivering them is our key priority.”

There are a number of key benefits to Kotlin Multiplatform, the biggest of which is a unified codebase between both Android and iOS. That includes the same codebase for networking, data storage, analytics, and all other logic from within an app. What’s more, logical elements are retained, but you will still retain the fluidity of native code when it comes to complete access to both Android and iOS SDKs. There’s even tooling for cross-platform development already within Android Studio.

“Where other technologies abstract away or completely replace platform specific app development, Kotlin Multiplatform is complementary to existing platform specific technologies and is geared towards replacing platform agnostic business logic. It’s a new tool in the toolbox as opposed to replacing the toolbox”, said David Henry & Mel Yahya at Netflix.

There are a few sample projects you can take a look at for inspiration on how to integrate Kotlin Multiplatform into your projects, making development easier when creating for both Android and iOS at the same time. It seems that this beta is primarily a stability improvement, but we’re looking forward to any more changes that may arrive throughout the lifecycle of Kotlin Multiplatform.

The post Kotlin Multiplatform enters beta for cross-platform development appeared first on XDA.

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