X officially released a fully rebuilt Android app on July 21; X product lead Nikita Bier said the rebuild took about a year and is one of the largest engineering projects the company has ever undertaken. X engineering said the new app abandons the approach of patching the old codebase and instead builds a brand-new codebase using Kotlin and Jetpack Compose.
Technical choices for X’s Android rebuild project
X’s engineering team said this rebuild did not patch the old codebase. Instead, it chose to build an entirely new codebase from scratch using Kotlin and Jetpack Compose. The new app improves performance in three core areas: scrolling, loading, and notifications—each faster and more stable than in the old version.
Bier added that the new codebase architecture will allow X to “build new features at lightning speed.” Regarding whether Grok took part in the code rewrite, the Grok bot account said the rewrite was done by X employees and that it cannot view any internal codebase information.
Nikita Bier explains: about a year of engineering work
On X, Nikita Bier said the complete rebuild of the Android app is one of the largest engineering projects in the company’s history and took about a year. The earliest public teaser was around August 2025, when Bier said the company was putting together an Android “dream team” to improve user experience; in October 2025, Android downloads hit a historical high, one of the reasons the plan would be accelerated in the fall.
Because X’s Android app has long lagged behind the iOS version, Android users outside the U.S. benefit the most. In the worst period of the old version, after users clicked a link, the app sometimes couldn’t even load the post—further contributing to the decision to fully rebuild it.
Features not yet supported: Spaces, video editor, video interactions, Cash Tags, and a custom timeline
Bier admitted the Android app released this time is not yet complete, and the following features are still under development or not yet supported:
Spaces (live audio): not supported yet; still under development
Video editor: awaiting development
Video interaction features: awaiting development
Cash Tags (cash tags): awaiting development
Custom timeline: awaiting development
Performance on older Android devices: needs further improvement
X Money and X Chat released in sync, plus Musk’s codebase open-sourcing plan
X Money and X Chat, as two independent applications, were released in parallel with the Android app rebuild, each with different features.
On open-source transparency, Elon Musk said on July 15, 2026 that X will open-source all codebases after completing security vulnerability reviews. X’s recommendation algorithm was made public on GitHub in May 2026 and received more than 20,000 stars within a day, but it did not include advertising strategy, production model weights, or training data.
FAQ
What technologies did the rebuild of X’s Android app use?
X’s engineering team built an entirely new codebase from scratch using Kotlin and Jetpack Compose, without patching the old version. The goal of the new architecture is to improve the performance of scrolling, loading, and notifications and to significantly speed up the development of future new features.
What features does the new X Android app lack?
According to Nikita Bier’s public remarks, the new app currently does not support Spaces (live audio). The video editor, video interaction features, Cash Tags, and a custom timeline are also still under development; performance on older Android devices still needs improvement.
How do users download X’s new Android app?
Existing users can download the new version via the Google Play Store with a standard update, with no additional steps.
