X has rolled out a fully rebuilt Android application after spending close to a year reworking the platform from the ground up. The updated app became available for download on Monday.
The company announced that the new Android version was built entirely from scratch and delivers enhancements in loading times, scrolling performance, notifications, and other areas.
A year-long engineering effort
X first revealed its plans to overhaul the Android app nearly a year ago. At that time, the company acknowledged that the Android version had not performed as well as its iOS counterpart.
In August of last year, X head of product Nikita Bier said the social network was assembling an Android "dream team" to redesign the user experience. Later that fall, Bier noted that X recorded one of its biggest weeks ever for Android downloads in October, which made the new app a priority for the company.
Bier described the project as "one of the largest engineering projects" in X's history. He emphasized that the team built the new Android app from scratch rather than simply updating the existing codebase.
Performance improvements and future features
According to X, the rebuilt app is faster, smoother, and more reliable than the previous version. The company modernized the underlying foundation to improve scrolling, loading, and notifications.
Stay ahead of the AI curve
The most important updates, news, and content — delivered weekly.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
"It's faster, smoother and more reliable. But most of all: it will enable us to build new features at lightning speed," Bier wrote on X.
The Elon Musk-owned social network has been introducing several new features recently, including X Money and X Chat, which were released as standalone applications.
The Android relaunch could also help attract more users in global markets where Android is the dominant smartphone platform. Some users may have left or avoided X due to years of neglect on Android. At one point last year, problems were so severe that the X app could not even load posts when users clicked links.
Still some rough edges
Bier cautioned that the new app still has some issues to address. 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 update to the new X app through the Google Play Store.