X ships rebuilt Android app after year-long engineering overhaul
The new application is now available on the Google Play Store, though key features such as Spaces support remain in development.
X has globally released a completely rebuilt Android application, marking the culmination of a nearly year-long engineering effort. The update, developed from scratch using Kotlin and Jetpack Compose, aims to rectify severe performance issues that previously hindered the user experience, including slow loading times, scrolling lag, and notification delays.
Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, described the initiative as one of the largest engineering projects in the company’s history. In an announcement posted on the platform, Bier emphasised that the modernised codebase was designed to accelerate future development, stating the rewrite would enable the team to build new features at "lightning speed."
The release follows a period of significant platform neglect on Android, despite the operating system’s dominance in global smartphone markets. Previous iterations of the app suffered from critical failures, such as users being unable to load posts when clicking links, which contributed to a decision to abandon incremental updates in favour of a ground-up rebuild.
While the new app is now available on the Google Play Store, certain functionalities remain incomplete. Bier noted that performance optimisations for older devices and support for Spaces, X’s live audio feature, are still in development. He also clarified that while Grok, X’s AI assistant, is used by developers to code faster, he has no visibility into its specific contribution to this rewrite.
X confirmed that additional features, including a new video editor, the react-with-video function, cashtags, and custom timelines, are scheduled for release on Android soon. The push to improve the Android experience coincides with record download figures reported last October, underscoring the platform's priority to retain users in key international markets.
