MobilePro

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #205: Choosing the Right Mobile Framework, Android 17’s Big Screen Mandate, Flutter 3.41’s Evolution, and more…Hi ,Welcome to the 205th edition of MobilePro.Once upon a time, choosing a mobile framework used to feel like a technical debate. Now, that is no longer the case. Today, it feels more like a long-term bet.Platforms and frameworks are both evolving, sometimes faster than teams expect. When the ecosystem keeps shifting like this, the wrong framework choice causes a bundle of issues: it slows you down, yes, but it also compounds over time. It affects how easily you adapt to new OS requirements, how quickly you ship updates, how you handle performance trade-offs, and even how you structure your team. Where once framework selection used to be about trends or developer preference, now it’s about resilience.That’s why this week’s tutorial takes a practical look at Flutter versus other approaches. We're not crowning a winner, but we provide a breakdown of the architectural trade-offs so you can choose without regretting it later. In an environment where platforms tighten rules and frameworks evolve quickly, flexibility might be the most important tool in your arsenal to achieve a happily-ever-after.Before we move to the tutorial, let's have a look at some of the important news stories from this week:Android 17 Beta 1 removed the ability to opt out of resizabilityFlutter 3.41 refined platform polish and modular upgradesReact Native 0.84 made Hermes V1 the default and cleaned up legacy architectureLet's get started!The Problem with One-Size-Fits-All Mobile App Security and How to Fix ItIs your team struggling to balance security requirements with user experience?Join us onFebruary 24at4 PM CET/10 AM ET for a webinar discussing how leading financial services teams are shifting to data-driven, risk-based mobile security for more precise responses.Register NowWhy Flutter is the strongest default bet for teams in 2026Choosing the wrong mobile framework doesn’t just slow development, it can lock your team into months of rework, hiring friction, and architectural compromises you didn’t anticipate. Flutter is often positioned as the “safe” cross-platform bet. But no framework is universally correct. The real question is whether Flutter aligns with your product complexity, team structure, performance needs, and long-term roadmap. Here’s how to think about it.Native Development: the gold standard with multiplying costsNative development (Swift for iOS, Kotlin for Android) remains the cleanest architectural path. It gives you immediate access to new OS features, first-class platform fidelity, maximum performance headroom, and nNo framework abstraction risk.If you’re building a platform-defining app that deeply integrates with OS-level features, native is still the strongest technical choice. But native becomes expensive the moment you support more than one platform.Two platforms mean two codebases, two specialized teams, two release cycles, and two QA pipelines, and two sets of platform-specific bugs.Coordination overhead grows fast. Feature parity becomes a project management problem. Hiring flexibility shrinks. Deadlines become harder to protect. Native doesn’t just multiply code, it multiplies operational complexity.Why cross-platform exists (it’s not about “write once”)Cross-platform frameworks aren’t primarily about saving keystrokes. They’re about reducing duplication and coordination risk. With a unified codebase, teams can fix bugs once, ship features in sync, maintain consistent UX, operate with smaller teams, and reduce long-term maintenance cost.That’s why cross-platform remains attractive even for serious production apps. But not all cross-platform frameworks are architecturally equal.The three major cross-platform approachesMost frameworks fall into one of these models:JavaScript + bridge (React Native)React Native uses JavaScript or TypeScript for logic and communicates with native APIs through a bridge.Its pros include familiarity for web/React teams, a mature ecosystem, and the use of native UI components.Trade-off is that the bridge introduces runtime complexity. Performance and consistency depend on how well native modules are implemented.Native UI Abstraction (.NET MAUI)MAUI builds cross-platform apps using C# and .NET while rendering native UI components. Its pros include strong fit for .NET organizations and shared business logic. Trade-off is that it has less unified UI control and limited web reach compared to Flutter.Custom Rendering Engine (Flutter)Flutter compiles to native code and renders its own UI using a graphics engine rather than relying on native components. This architectural decision is why Flutter feels different, and why it often performs differently.Flutter vs. React Native: the architectural difference that mattersReact Native maps to native UI components. Flutter renders everything itself. This difference affects animation smoothness, cross-platform visual consistency, dependency on OS-level UI changes, and Bridge overhead.Flutter avoids a JavaScript runtime bridge, which reduces a common source of performance unpredictability. It also ensures that UI behaves the same across platforms. That consistency is one of Flutter’s biggest strengths, and also one of its philosophical trade-offs. You’re choosing control over platform mimicry.Where Flutter winsFlutter tends to win when teams prioritize speed, consistency, and scalability of development.Developer velocity: Flutter’s hot reload is one of the most refined in the industry. Fast iteration directly improves productivity in UI-heavy workflows. Small friction differences compound over months of development.True unified codebase: Many frameworks claim “one codebase” but still diverge over time. Flutter delivers one of the closest real-world experiences to one UI layer, one logic layer, and one release rhythm. This reduces coordination overhead significantly.Performance without a JS runtime: Flutter compiles ahead of time and avoids JavaScript bridge overhead. For most production apps, performance is not a primary complaint in the Flutter ecosystem. UI-heavy applications especially benefit from predictable rendering.Strong plugin ecosystem: Flutter’s ecosystem is large and active. Most common mobile features are available via community or official plugins. And when they’re not, writing platform-specific plugins is straightforward, reducing long-term lock-in risk.Production-scale adoption: Flutter is used in production by companies including Google Classroom, Google Ads, Nubank, BMW, Toyota, Grab, and eBay Motors. This signals maturity beyond experimentation.Where Flutter is not idealNo framework is universally correct. Flutter has trade-offs:Rapid evolution: Flutter evolves quickly. That means deprecations, migration effort, and breaking changes across versions. If your organization prefers slow-moving ecosystems, this matters.Larger binary size: Flutter apps bundle the rendering engine, which increases base app size. For most markets this is acceptable. For ultra-lightweight apps or strict size constraints, it can be a concern.Platform-specific UX nuances: Flutter can mimic native patterns, but it doesn’t inherit them automatically. If your product depends heavily on deeply platform-native interactions, extra work may be required to avoid a “cross-platform feel.”The AI dimension: why popularity compounds advantageAI is changing development in two major ways:AI as developer assistance: Stacks with large public ecosystems generate better AI tooling support. Flutter benefits from strong open-source presence, large documentation base, and an active community. This improves code-generation quality and debugging assistance.AI inside apps: Modern apps increasingly include summarization, search, recommendations, and generative features. Flutter integrates smoothly with Firebase and Google’s AI tooling, making it practical for teams building AI-enabled features. However, AI-generated code does not replace architectural understanding. Teams still need to enforce structure and maintainability.A practical decision frameworkUse this as a quick reference.Choose Flutter if:You need iOS + Android (and possibly web) from one teamUI consistency matters more than platform mimicryYou prioritize iteration speedYou want strong performance without JS runtime complexityChoose React Native if:Your organization is deeply invested in ReactYou prefer native UI componentsYou’re comfortable maintaining native bridgesChoose .NET MAUI if:You’re a .NET-first organizationWeb reach is secondaryShared business logic is the priorityChoose Native if:You need deep OS integrationsPlatform-specific UX is criticalYou require smallest possible binariesYou already have strong platform-dedicated teamsFlutter isn’t compelling because it’s perfect. It’s compelling because it balances trade-offs extremely well:Strong performance without a JS bridgeGenuine cross-platform coverageHigh developer velocityMature ecosystemProven production adoptionNative still wins on platform purity and first access to new OS capabilities, but it multiplies complexity.Choosing Flutter isn’t just a technical decision. It’s a strategic one about how your team wants to build, scale, and maintain software over time.And in an environment where platforms evolve quickly and AI is accelerating development cycles, that strategic flexibility may be the deciding factor.To learn more about Flutter, check out the fourth edition of Flutter for Beginners by Thomas Bailey and Alessandro Biessek.📘 Fourth edition of Flutter for Beginners is fully updated for the latest Flutter and Dart releases and uses real-world examples🧩 Practical guide shows you how to build, test, and release high-quality mobile apps for iOS, Android, and the web🔀Work with Flutter widgets and learn about stateful/stateless widgetsFlutter for BeginnersPre-order now at $44.99This week’s news cornerIf framework choice is a long-term strategic decision, this week’s updates show just how fast the ground keeps shifting underneath us.Android 17 Beta 1 pushes adaptive apps with mandatory resizability support: Google has released the first beta of Android 17, kicking off the next platform cycle. It introduces major changes for large screens, removing the ability for apps to opt out of resizability and orientation changes, meaning developers must ensure their apps work smoothly across tablets, foldables, and multi-window environments.Flutter 3.41 empowers community with modularity and platform polish: Flutter 3.41 brings improved iOS tooling support (like better Swift Package Manager integration and UIScene adoption) and platform-specific asset optimizations that can reduce app size and improve performance. The release also refines navigation, scrolling, previews, and accessibility APIs, directly impacting real-world app UX and maintainability. Additionally, clearer release windows and modular library updates make it easier for teams to plan upgrades and manage dependencies.React Native 0.84 makes Hermes V1 the default with faster builds and internal cleanup: React Native 0.84 ships Hermes V1 as the default JavaScript engine on both iOS and Android. The release also enables precompiled iOS binaries by default to significantly speed up builds and continues removing legacy architecture code from core components. Developers will need Node.js 22 or later and should test for compatibility as legacy modules and tooling updates roll out in this stable update.UK watchdog wins voluntary fair app-store commitments from Apple and Google: Apple and Google have agreed to voluntary commitments with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority to treat third-party apps more fairly, including transparent app reviews and non-discriminatory search rankings, while promising easier access to system features for developers. The move is part of a new digital markets regime aimed at reducing Apple and Google’s market dominance and improving the mobile app ecosystem for developers.Apple’s Siri AI overhaul faces fresh delays, slipping key features past iOS 26.4: Reports suggest Apple’s ambitious Siri AI revamp, originally expected with iOS 26.4, is running into development snags, with advanced capabilities like in-app actions and deeper personal context now likely to arrive in iOS 26.5 or even iOS 27 later this year. This ongoing delay, driven by testing issues and reliability problems, has frustrated users and highlighted how far Siri’s evolution still has to go compared with rivals.Xcode 26.4 beta brings incremental tools and platform updates for devs: Apple has released the Xcode 26.4 beta (build 17E5159k), marking the next step in the Xcode 26 cycle with updated tooling for building and testing apps across Apple platforms. This beta arrives alongside iOS 26.4 betas, giving developers early access to the latest SDKs and compatibility updates.If you’re not learning to build with AI right now, you’re falling behind.Join Michelle Sandford, Developer Engagement Lead at Microsoft, for a live workshop on mastering AI-assisted development with GitHub Copilot, from advanced prompting and Agent Mode to production-ready workflows.🚀 3 hours | 65% hands-on | Real-world coding exercisesBuild faster. Ship smarter. Stay in control.🎟 Get 50% off with code COPILOT50 (limited time).Seats are limited.Register Now👋 And that’s a wrap! We hope you enjoyed this edition ofMobilePro. If you have any suggestions and feedback, or would just like to say hi to us, please write to us. Just respond to this email!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #204: AI in Figma, AI Coding agents in Xcode, Kotlin’s new release, and more…Hi ,Welcome to the 204th edition of MobilePro.You must have noticed the abbreviation AI twice in the headline. It's something you see everywhere now, isn't it? One could say AI arrived in mobile development with a bang, but I'd wager it's arriving quietly, tool by tool, feature by feature, and suddenly, our workflows are going to look completely different.Let that headline tell you the story: First, Apple is bringing AI coding agents directly into Xcode, and then iOS 26.4 could push Siri toward deeper, more app-aware actions. Even on the research side, Apple-backed models are exploring things like generating sound and speech from silent video. AI is no longer a separate thing but an intrinsic part of the default developer toolkit.This makes the design stage an especially important place to slow down and get things right. Because before AI helps you write code faster or analyze metrics better, it can help you think more clearly about what you’re building. That’s why today’s tutorial focuses on speeding up your flow with AI in Figma. If you think this is about automating design, it isn't really that. We're focused largely on removing the friction that shows up early, stuff like fuzzy personas, hidden assumptions, slow iteration, and messy handoffs. Used well, AI in Figma helps teams reach clarity sooner, so everything that follows—code, testing, and iteration—has a much better foundation.Let’s get started!The Problem with One-Size-Fits-All Mobile App Security and How to Fix ItIs your team struggling to balance security requirements with user experience?Join us onFebruary 24at4 PM CET/10 AM ETfor a webinar discussing how leading financial services teams are shifting to data-driven, risk-based mobile security for more precise responses.Register NowSpeeding up your flow with AI in FigmaAI isn’t here to replace designers, and it definitely isn’t here to “auto-design” products. What it is good at is removing the slow, repetitive, and messy parts of modern mobile workflows, the parts that delay alignment, slow down iteration, and create avoidable confusion between design and development.For mobile teams, speed isn’t just about moving fast. It’s about reaching clarity earlier: clearer user assumptions, clearer flows, clearer states, and fewer surprises during implementation.Used well, AI becomes a workflow accelerator for both designers and mobile developers. Designers explore faster without losing intent. Developers get clearer prototypes, more predictable behavior, and fewer handoff translation errors.The goal isn’t to “design with AI.” The goal is to ship better mobile experiences with fewer bottlenecks.Before Figma: faster exploration without false certaintyBefore anyone opens Figma, most projects begin in ambiguity. You’re collecting inputs, forming hypotheses, and trying to understand what the product should be, all while stakeholders expect early direction.This stage is where AI can help most, as long as it isn’t treated as truth.Personas (as scaffolding, not research)AI can quickly generate persona skeletons from early notes, workshop inputs, or stakeholder assumptions. Tools like FigJam’s AI can cluster messy ideas into themes and draft rough persona profiles based on what’s already on the board.External tools like ChatGPT can go further: refining motivations, expanding behaviors, and generating multiple persona variants to explore.The key is to treat personas here as temporary structure, not “validated users.” They’re placeholders that help teams align early and move forward with intention, without pretending the answers are final.Early assumptions (made visible, not buried)Mobile teams often lose time because assumptions stay implicit. AI can help pull those assumptions into the open:What problem are we really solving?What are we assuming about user behavior?What constraints are we ignoring?What’s unclear in the flow?This kind of exploration creates better design conversations, and better developer questions, earlier in the process.Competitive scanning (faster context, less guesswork)Competitive analysis is time-consuming, and it’s often done poorly because it’s rushed. AI tools can help you scan faster and structure insights more cleanly.Source-based tools like Perplexity are especially useful here because they allow you to explore market patterns and product positioning while staying grounded in references. Instead of spending hours collecting fragmented information, you can quickly identify:How similar apps structure key flows?Which patterns are becoming standard?What gaps exist in feature sets or UX expectations?AI as exploration, not decision. This is the rule that keeps everything healthy:AI is most valuable when it helps you explore, not when it tries to decide.It speeds up thinking, but it doesn’t replace judgment. Your team still owns the product decisions.From idea to interaction with Figma MakeIf AI helps you explore before Figma, Figma Make is where it becomes a serious workflow upgrade.Make is built for fast prototyping through conversation. Instead of building everything manually, you describe what you want, or paste an existing design, and Make generates a working interactive prototype.This is especially useful for mobile teams because the hardest part of mobile UX is often not the visuals, it’s the behavior:navigation patternsstate changesinputs and validationtransitions and flow continuityMake accelerates all of that.Conversational prototypingMake works like a collaborative assistant. You can ask for: core screens for a feature, alternate layouts for a flow, a basic navigation structure, and Interaction behaviors (cards, modals, tabs, etc.).For example:“Create a mobile home screen for a travel planning app with a search bar, destination carousel, and bottom navigation.”“Generate three alternative layouts for a booking flow with date selection and traveler details.”“Build an interactive prototype for exploring points of interest, including card interactions and a map view.”Instead of staring at a blank canvas, you start with something functional.Structure plus logic (not just mockups)The major difference between Make and traditional quick mockups is that it generates more than layout.Make supports interactive behavior, allowing you to preview: transitions, form inputs, navigation patterns, and data-driven states.If you want realism, it can even connect to external data sources like Supabase to simulate an app that responds dynamically rather than remaining purely visual. That matters because mobile teams don’t ship static screens. They ship systems.Early validation for designers and developersThis is where Make becomes a shared tool. Designers get faster iteration and can explore alternatives without rebuilding everything manually.Developers benefit because:the interaction logic becomes clearer earlystate behavior is easier to evaluateedge cases surface soonerthe “what happens when…” questions get answered before implementationInstead of debating a flow in abstract terms, the team can test it in a working prototype.The right way to use Make: iterative, not giant prompts.Make has a token budget per request. If you try to generate an entire app in one prompt, it will break or degrade. The best workflow is:Generate one view or interaction.Refine it.Add the next piece.Build the flow step-by-step.This gives you higher reliability and more creative control, and avoids treating AI as a “magic button.”A bridge to production, not a detourOnce the prototype matches your intention, you can move it into Figma Design and refine: visual language, design system consistency, spacing and layout precision, and final interaction polish.Make also produces inspectable code under the hood, which can help developers understand what’s being proposed and reduce ambiguity.Designing with handoff in mindAI doesn’t stop being useful once you enter “real design.” In fact, this is where it becomes most practical. Mobile teams lose time in handoff because of translation gaps:designers describe behavior in one waydevelopers interpret it differentlyedge cases are missedimplementation diverges from intentAI can reduce this, not by replacing communication, but by making outputs clearer.Inspectable outputsWhen prototypes behave more like real products, handoff becomes less interpretive.Instead of handing off static screens and hoping the interactions are understood, teams can point to a working prototype that shows:what changeswhen it changeswhat the user sees in different statesThat’s especially valuable for mobile, where interaction patterns and state management are everything.Clearer documentationExternal AI tools can help you transform messy design notes into structured documentation. Claude is particularly strong at reading long content like:design system specscomponent behavior definitionsinteraction notesUX flow descriptionsIt can rewrite those notes into clean, consistent documentation that developers can actually use. ChatGPT is also strong here, especially when you need:multiple versions of an explanationsimpler language for stakeholdersa more technical tone for developersclearer state descriptions for componentsFewer translation errors between design and codeEven if AI never touches the final implementation, it still improves the handoff by improving the shared understanding.When developers understand component behavior faster, fewer details get lost, and fewer rounds of clarification are needed. AI doesn’t remove collaboration. It reduces friction in collaboration.Use AI as a multiplier, not a shortcutAI is at its best when it supports the work you already do, exploration, iteration, documentation, and alignment.It’s not a shortcut to good design. It’s a multiplier for good design thinking. If you treat it as a tool for speed with intention, it helps mobile teams:explore faster without pretending to know the answersprototype interactions earlier and more realisticallyalign on behavior before development beginsreduce handoff ambiguity and implementation driftDesign still requires judgment. AI just removes the parts that slow you down for no good reason.The most valuable impact of AI in design isn’t that it produces screens faster. It’s that it helps teams reach shared understanding sooner.When you use AI to explore ideas before Figma, prototype interactions quickly with Figma Make, and support documentation and handoff with clearer language, you reduce the gaps that slow mobile work down. Designers stay focused on judgment and quality. Developers get cleaner intent, fewer surprises, and more predictable implementation.AI is not a shortcut around good design. It’s a multiplier for teams that already care about doing it well, and a practical way to keep speed, clarity, and craft in balance.To learn more about Figma, check out the third edition of Designing and Prototyping Interfaces with Figma by Fabio Staiano.📘 Third edition of the bestselling book, updated with a new project, refreshed interface, and the latest design trends🧩 Build adaptive, production-ready UIs with variables, modes, components, variants, AI, and Auto Layout🔀 Prototype branched flows with conditional interactions and interactive componentsDesigning and Prototyping Interfaces with FigmaBuy now at $39.99This week’s news cornerNow that we’ve covered how AI can reduce friction inside Figma, let’s look at this week's news, where that same idea shows up often.Xcode 26.3 brings AI coding agents directly into iOS development: Apple’s Xcode 26.3 introduces agentic coding support, allowing iOS and macOS developers to use AI coding agents like Claude Agent and OpenAI Codex directly inside Xcode. These agents can explore documentation, adjust project settings, and assist across the build cycle. With Model Context Protocol support, developers also get more flexibility to plug in compatible AI tools into their app development pipeline.Kotlin 2.3.0 released: Kotlin 2.3.0 is out. It introduces unified companion object access across all JavaScript module systems. This will let exported companion objects behave the same way in ES modules, CommonJS, AMD, UMD, and more, which eliminates the previous inconsistencies in how they were accessed from JS/TS code. It also simplifies Kotlin/JS interop and avoids bugs caused by differing access patterns depending on the module system.iOS 26.4 beta could unlock major Siri upgrades for developers: Apple is expected to release the first iOS 26.4 developer beta during the week of February 23. This update could be a key milestone, as Siri is expected to gain deeper app integration features like on-screen awareness, personal context, and the ability to take actions inside apps. If delivered as promised, iOS 26.4 may open new opportunities for building more intelligent, voice-driven iOS experiences.Accelerating your insights with faster, smarter monetization data and recommendations: Google is rolling out enhanced monetization insights and actionable recommendations in the Google Play Console. It will provide developers with a clearer visibility into key business metrics like conversion, churn, ARPPU, and revenue drivers. With these updates, developers can make data-driven decisions faster, prioritize improvements with estimated ROI, and integrate real-time order data via the Orders API that will let you to track performance better and optimize app business outcomes.New Apple-backed AI model can generate sound and speech from silent videos: Apple and partners have developed a unified AI model called VSSFlow. This model can generate both sound effects and speech from silent videos using a single system. This addresses the limitations that existed in separate video-to-audio and speech generation models. Developers can utilize this new tech to enable richer multimedia features, faster prototyping of audio-visual interactions, and new accessibility possibilities by automating synchronized sound and speech creation directly from video content.👋 And that’s a wrap! We hope you enjoyed this edition ofMobilePro. If you have any suggestions and feedback, or would just like to say hi to us, please write to us. Just respond to this email!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #203: A sneak peek into the past and the futureWebinar: How to Build Faster with AI AgentsLearn how full‑stack developers boost productivity by 50% with AI agents that automate layout, styling, and component generation through RAG and LLM pipelines. See how orchestration and spec‑driven workflows keep you in control of quality and consistency.Save your seat!Hi ,Welcome to the first MobilePro issue of the year. We missed being in touch with you, our readers, but worry not, we’re back for good.The world of mobile development was constantly on the move in 2025, but the real story was the direction the updates were pointed in. Everyday development focussed on adaptability to a scalable structure, being AI-assisted, and maintenance of clean codebases, and the teams that adapted early are already moving differently.Last year we sent out 40 issues to almost 100,000 subscribers. We featured news, tutorials and tips and advice. This year, we want to continue carry on serving you, our reader. And sure, just as the mobile dev landscape keeps changing, we’ll be updating with the times as well.To start with, this edition is a reset and a catch-up in one. We’re bringing you a chance to look back at pieces from past issues that defined the trajectory we were on in 2025. Make note of the trends that we could track only in hindsight before embarking on the news that has taken place in 2026.Let’s get started!The shifts that defined 2025AI became default, skepticism defined mobile workflows: Towards the end of July 2025, the 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey showed 84 % of developers—including many in mobile workflows—used or planned to use AI tools, yet only 33 % trusted their outputs. This marked a defining 2025 trend: AI presence is now assumed, but judgment and domain expertise matter more than ever.Swift’s Android support reshapes cross-platform mobile development: In June 2025, the Swift open-source project formalized official Android support by creating an Android Working Group and preview SDK, which enabled mobile developers to build Android apps in Swift without relying on third-party hacks. This signaled a major shift from platform-exclusive languages toward true cross-platform toolchains. Language portability and unified codebases became strategic priorities rather than niche experiments.Apple opened core AI models to third-party developers: In May 2025, Apple shifted its long-held closed ecosystem approach by opening access to its on-device Apple Intelligence foundation models for third-party developers. This enabled apps to integrate native AI features like summarization, generation, and personalized interactions directly within the app layer. Apple’s move signified that AI was becoming a fundamental building block for app innovation going ahead.Native mobile languages, Kotlin, Swift, and Ruby, lose ground: In April 2025, the TIOBE Programming Community index that runs every month showed Kotlin, Swift and Ruby in a swirl of decline. That has largely been the pattern across the whole of 2025. This trend suggests mobile dev teams are increasingly prioritizing unified, cross-platform toolchains (like Flutter and React Native) over platform-exclusive languages.Most popular articles from our past newslettersMission Possible—The Model Context Protocol (Originally sent: October 29, 2025) MCP is the next major shift in how software connects, similar to how REST transformed web development. Instead of treating AI as just a chatbot layer, MCP is positioned as an open standard for giving AI models structured access to real tools and actions, turning natural language into reliable, executable workflows across apps like GitHub, Blender, Playwright, and Google Maps.This article by Christoffer Noring, Modern AI Integration Expert, was derived from his Learn Model Context Protocol with Python book. In 2025, this was especially timely as prompts became the new UI and teams started building more agent-like experiences. MCP addressed the biggest blocker in that transition: integration chaos. By standardizing how apps expose capabilities to AI, MCP promised less glue code, faster interoperability, and a foundation for the agentic future, where assistants not only answer questions but also operate software.Swift Made Simple—Functional Programming Demystified (Originally sent: August 20, 2025)This article by Jon Hoffman, a Swift programming expert and Mastering Swift 6's author, made functional programming in Swift feel practical instead of academic. By focusing on four core ideas including immutability, pure functions, first-class functions, and higher-order functions, iOS developers were provided clear habits to write code that’s easier to reason about, reuse, and test.In 2025, this was especially relevant as Swift apps increasingly dealt with concurrency and complex state, where bugs often come from hidden mutations and side effects. By promoting predictable behavior and safer data flow, the article positioned FP as a reliable way to build cleaner, more maintainable Swift codebases that scale with real-world app complexity.Mastering Android Architecture with MVVM and the Repository Pattern (Originally sent: November 26, 2025)This article was drawn from the third edition of How to Build Android Applications with Kotlin written by four experts, Alex Forrester, Eran Boudjnah, Alexandru Dumbravan, and Jomar Tigcal. It broke down why Android apps need stronger structure as they scale, especially when activities and fragments start absorbing too much user interface (UI), business logic, and data-handling responsibility. It introduced MVVM as a clean way to separate concerns across the View, ViewModel, and Model layers, and showed how Jetpack ViewModel plus Kotlin Flow enables reactive, lifecycle-aware UI updates with less manual wiring.In 2025, as Android development increasingly relied on Jetpack libraries and coroutine-based patterns, this approach reflected what production-grade Android teams needed most: scalable structure, predictable state management, and cleaner boundaries between UI and data.This week’s news cornerReact Native and Expo dethroned by Snap’s Valdi and ByteDance’s Lynx: In a surprise shake-up, Snap’s Valdi and ByteDance’s Lynx climbed ahead of React Native and Expo. However, one thing to note is that they still follow web-style development (TS/JSX/CSS-like patterns). React Native and Expo remain strong and are rapidly improving stability, performance, and release workflows. We see how mobile dev is shifting toward faster “web-like” DX, better performance models, and more competition/innovation in tooling and UI stacks.OpenClaw signals the rise of Local, self-improving AI assistants: OpenClaw is a rapidly growing open-source, local-first AI assistant that lives inside chat apps and can execute real tasks via filesystem/shell access, skills, and integrations. It matters because it signals a shift from building standalone apps to building agent plugins/automations, raising new expectations for self-extending software. It also makes security, permissions, and orchestration skills critical as agents become powerful “personal OS” layers.Android Studio Otter 3 Feature Drop: Android Studio’s Otter 3 Feature Drop is now live and stable. This release delivers major upgrades to AI-powered development, with refinements that genuinely improve day-to-day workflows. Devs can cherish this as this means stronger performance on large projects, fewer random IDE slowdowns, more stable builds, a sharper debugging experience, and better compatibility with the latest Android Gradle Plugin (AGP). You can learn more about this new release and its benefits in this insightful article by Shubham Singh.Android updates are changing, and developers will feel it in 2026: Android is shifting its update model in 2026. It will lean toward a faster, more predictable, and modular rollouts that reduces fragmentation and eases long-term version support. This also brings tighter platform-level security enforcement, meaning older apps may need quicker fixes and cleaner permission handling, especially in enterprise fleets. With deeper on-device AI becoming standard, developers will need stronger QA pipelines, smarter fallbacks, and more modern app architecture.Announcing the Windows Workgroup: Swift has announced the creation of Windows Workgroup. This new workgroup gives Swift’s Windows support real momentum, improving tooling, core libraries (like Foundation and Dispatch), and best practices for Windows API interoperability. With Arc Browser gone as a flagship example, this effort helps rebuild confidence and sets the stage for a clearer roadmap, stronger stability, and future standout Swift-built Windows apps.Tell us how you learn in the age of AIAs AI generates more learning content, it is becoming harder to see where expert input really makes a difference. Packt has recently partnered with Go1 to create a short study looking at how developersactually learntoday, and when structured courses still matter alongside AI tools.If you work with learning or rely on it to build skills, your perspective would be useful. The survey takes under5minutestocomplete,and the results will be sharedin a study published in March.Take the Survey!What do you want more of in 2026?Click here and tell us!👋 And that’s a wrap on this first edition of 2026. We hope you liked this short recap of everything that happened in the last year. In the coming weeks, we hope to keep you at the forefront of pathbreaking news and any trends carving new paths. See you around!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!From Fload in conjunction with MobileProAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #202: Today - Mobile Apps Get Their First AI EmployeeHi ,Welcome to the 202nd edition of MobilePro! This is our last issue for the month. Our team will be on a short end-of-year break, and we’ll resume with fresh insights in January. Now let's look at what's in store for you in this issue.You've been told AI will transform how you build apps, but not how to operate and grow them. Here's what's actually changing: AI agents that don't just answer questions, they monitor your business, find opportunities, and soon, execute growth strategies for you.Meet Fload.com: the first AI employee for mobile app teams. Right now, you're probably spending hours each week staring at App Store Connect, Google Play, RevenueCat, all of the ad platforms and product analytics tools, trying to figure out why conversions dropped, is ad spend working or which markets to expand into next. Fload's AI agent is already doing that work for you 24/7.When you connect your app today, you get:Monitoring Agent: Watches every metric 24/7. Catches anomalies in real-time and alerts you before problems become crises.Growth Agent: Spots opportunities you're missing: untapped markets, monetization gaps, high-value user segments hiding in your data.App Valuation Audit: Know what your app is worth. Instant business health assessment based on revenue, engagement, and growth trajectory.Predictive Forecasting: See the future before it happens. Project revenue, model scenarios, make decisions with confidence instead of guesswork.And this is just phase one. We're building toward AI agents that execute on opportunities.Imagine: Fload detects that your German users have 3x higher ARPU than expected. Soon, it won't just tell you - it'll draft localized app store copy, suggest pricing experiments, and automatically implement A/B tests. This is the future: AI that doesn't just analyze your app - it grows it.The future of mobile app growth is autonomous. Join 250+ apps already using Fload.Try Fload for FreeInstall your agent to App Store Connect/Google Play in 60 seconds.P.S. - We're rolling out autonomous execution features to early users first. Connect your app now to get priority access.💬 What Users Say:"I used to spend 4-5 hours every Monday pulling reports and trying to figure out what happened last week. Now I just ask Fload. It's like having a senior analyst who actually knows our business."- Tekla Wannberg, CEO @ The Mindfulness App (200k+ MAU)"Revenue started dropping on our habit tracking app and we had no idea why. Fload caught it instantly. Turns out our in-app offers had expired and we completely forgot to renew them. Saved us from losing $10k+"- Head of Growth @ Nis Von Seelen (Do Habits app)"Fload feels like an AI head of analytics letting me dive into rabbit holes I'd never have had time for."- Dennis Lysenko, Founder, Autocaptionapp.comHappy Holidays. See you next year!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #201: iOS 26.2, Compose Multiplatform update, Amper release, and more…Hi ,Welcome to another week of MobilePro; this is edition no. 201.As we slide into the holiday season, the one time of year when no developer wants surprise fires to put out, Apple seems to be keeping things mercifully calm with iOS 26.2. The update is shaping up to land sometime mid-December, and it’s very much a “polish, not panic” kind of release. Smoother animations, tighter performance, and small UI refinements like the new Lock Screen opacity slider make up the majority of the update. This release hopefully contains nothing that should break your app. However, it’s worth giving your interfaces and widgets a quick once-over just to make sure they still look intentional on the new system.The quieter changes are happening inside the system apps and services your app may rely on. Updates to Reminders notifications, offline lyrics in Apple Music, and expanded translation and speech features in certain regions might affect apps that integrate with those APIs, especially in markets where users can even swap out their default voice assistant. None of it is major, but it’s the type of OS update that can create tiny side effects if you’re not paying attention. A small round of testing now means you get to enjoy your December without surprise bug reports trickling in while you're trying to disconnect for a bit.That’s not all the news this week. Let’s dive in.🛡️ App Store Accountability Act: A new federal proposal may shift age-verification responsibility from developers to Apple and Google nationwide.🎨 Compose Multiplatform 1.9.3 Update: Adds improved previews, shadows, context menus, and the new Material 3 Expressive theme across platforms.🧩 Amper 0.9.0 Release: Introduces extensibility previews, faster dependency resolution, and multiple quality-of-life IDE upgrades.📐 Material 3 v1.4.0 for Jetpack Compose: Delivers stable MD3 components, dynamic color support, and a new adaptive navigation suite.🤖 Claude Opus 4.5 Launch: Anthropic’s latest model brings major boosts in reasoning, coding, safety, and long-running agentic workflows.Stick around for this week’sDeveloper Tip to learn to build high-performance iOS appsandtheDid You Know? section to know more about Digital Markets Act for Apple Maps and Apple ads.AI-Powered Prototyping MasterclassYou can save 50% OFF on your seats - apply coupon code CLOUD50 at checkout.If you’re planning your next AI project, this is your window to lock in a proven framework to prototype your idea without coding! The AI Prototyping Masterclass is a 5-hour, hands-on session led by Michael Hyzy, an AI strategy leader who helps global organizations move from AI ambition to deployed, working products.We will demonstrate with Bolt.new, Figma, n8n, ChatGPT and Supabase. The best part? The workflow transfers across tools of your preference. Join us on December 6, and build your first AI prototype in just one day.Book Your Seat Now📱 What's Happening in Mobile Development?If there’s any major news in the world of mobile app dev in the last week, MobilePro has you covered.iOSApp Store Accountability Act would make Apple responsible for age verification: A new federal proposal, the App Store Accountability Act, would make Apple and Google (not individual developers) responsible for verifying users’ ages before app downloads. States like Utah and Texas already require this. Congress is now considering applying the rule nationwide. Supporters say it’s a “commonsense” way to protect kids and simplify verification, though Apple has pushed back against the shift.AndroidWhat's new in Compose Multiplatform 1.9.3: Compose Multiplatform 1.9.3 introduces major upgrades, including new @Preview parameters, customizable shadows, a new context menu API, and an experimental Material 3 Expressive theme. The release also brings iOS frame-rate controls, improved web support now in Beta, enhanced accessibility, and a new API for embedding HTML content. It updates multiple dependencies and adds tooling improvements like AGP 9.0.0 support and unified web distribution.Amper Update, November 2025, Extensibility Preview: Amper 0.9.0 introduces its first extensibility preview, allowing developers to create custom tasks and local plugins using Kotlin + YAML, along with a redesigned documentation website. The update also brings major performance gains in dependency resolution, new incremental Java compilation, Maven-like layout support, and multiple IDE enhancements like auto-sync and improved quick-fixes. This release sets the stage for broader plugin publishing and richer customization in future versions.Jetpack Compose Material 3 1.4.0 is out: Jetpack Compose Material 3 has been updated to version 1.4.0, bringing stable support for modern Material Design 3 components, dynamic color, and updated theming aligned with Android 12’s visual style. The release also includes a new 1.5.0-alpha09 adaptive navigation suite for developers building more responsive UIs.Kotlin introduces checker for unused return values: Kotlin 2.3.0 RC introduces a new experimental checker for unused return values, helping developers catch silent logic bugs, while stabilizing features like nested type aliases and exhaustiveness checks. The update also brings Java 25 support, improved Swift interop, and enhancements across Kotlin/Wasm and Kotlin/JS, including direct JS export of suspend functions. The stable release is expected next month or early 2026.Google's New LiteRT Accelerator Supercharges AI Workloads on Snapdragon-powered Android Devices: Google has launched LiteRT’s new QNN accelerator, delivering massive on-device AI performance boosts on Snapdragon 8–powered Android devices, up to 100× faster than CPU and 10× faster than GPU execution. Built with Qualcomm, QNN enables full NPU delegation for most models, unlocking real-time experiences like instant scene understanding using optimized vision-language models. Support is currently limited to select Snapdragon 8/8+ devices, with tools available via GitHub.Artificial Intelligence (AI)Introducing Claude Opus 4.5: Anthropic has released Claude Opus 4.5, a major upgrade that delivers state-of-the-art coding, reasoning, and agentic capabilities while significantly improving speed, efficiency, and safety. The model outperforms previous versions across engineering, research, vision, and math tasks, and includes strong defenses against prompt-injection attacks. Alongside the model, Anthropic rolled out platform updates, such as effort controls, better tool use, and enhanced Claude Code, Chrome, Excel, and desktop integrations to support more powerful long-running workflows.Looking to build high-performance iOS apps that stand out from the 1.6 million+ crowd on the App Store? Check out this guide: Mastering iOS App Development—Strategies for Success. It walks you through performance-optimization tricks (like efficient memory use, networking, UI/UX refinements and startup-time improvements) that help your iOS apps stay fast, smooth and user-friendly.In case you have any tips to share with your fellow mobile developers, do reply to this mail and we’d be glad to feature you in a future edition of MobilePro.💭 What is the Mobile Community Talking About?What are mobile app developers discussing? Do you have any concerns, advice, or tutorials to share?MobileProbrings them to you all in one place.How a proper MVVM + Repository setup cut 6 months of rework in a Flutter app: A team refactored their messy Flutter codebase, where UI widgets, API calls, and business logic were tangled together, into a clean UI → ViewModel → Repository/Service → (optionally) Use-Case architecture, and saw feature delivery times drop from 6–8 weeks to 5–7 days.Flutter + Serverpod brings full-stack CRUD power back to Dart/Flutter: The latest tutorial from Tech With Sam shows how to build secure CRUD operations for a task-management app using Serverpod as the backend. Thanks to shared Dart models, type-safe database access, and auto-generated client APIs, you get a production-ready Flutter + backend setup, complete with authentication, data validation, and clean error handling, without leaving Dart.How SwiftData persists AttributedString under the hood: The article reveals that SwiftData now supports storing rich-text AttributedStrings. but instead of a plain text field, it serializes the attributed data into a storable format (often via a wrapper or transformer), preserving styling and metadata for Core Data/SwiftData-backed storage. This means you can persist and reload styled, attribute-rich text (e.g. markdown, formatting, links) reliably in your app’s database.📚️ Latest in Mobile Development from PacktMobilePro presents the latest titles from Packt that ought to be useful for mobile developers.A perfect book for beginners with minimal coding experience who want to enter the world of Swift programming and iOS app development.🎉 Have fun building your first iOS app and start your iOS programming career🧠 Learn to integrate Apple Intelligence and the sleek new Liquid Glass UI for modern app experiences🧱 Establish a solid foundation with UIKit, testing, and deployment best practicesiOS 26 Programming for BeginnersBuy now at $40.49! The European Commission is reviewing whether Apple Maps and Apple Ads should be labeled as “gatekeepers” under the Digital Markets Act, which would subject them to stricter EU regulations because they reportedly have over 45 million monthly users.Apple, however, argues that both services have limited market share compared with giants like Google Maps, Waze and major ad networks, and should therefore be exempt from special treatment.Sourced from 9 to 5 Mac.👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this edition of MobilePro. If you have any suggestions and feedback, or would just like to say hi to us, please write to us. Just respond to this email!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #200: Mastering Android Architecture with MVVM and the Repository PatternHi ,Welcome to the 200th edition of MobilePro!Every Android app needs structure, but not every structure can keep up as your codebase grows. When activities and fragments start filling up with business logic, UI handling, and data processing, your project becomes harder to test, scale, and maintain. That’s where architectural patterns step in.In this issue of MobilePro, four experts, Alex Forrester, Eran Boudjnah, Alexandru Dumbravan, and Jomar Tigcal, come together to break down the foundations of clean Android architecture. Drawing from the third edition of their book How to Build Android Applications with Kotlin, they guide you through the MVVM and Repository patterns and show how these approaches keep your code organized, testable, and scalable as your app grows.We’ll cover:Why architectural patterns matter as your project growsHow MVVM cleanly separates UI, logic, and dataHow Jetpack ViewModel and Kotlin flows simplify reactive updatesHow the Repository pattern streamlines data access and keeps ViewModels focusedWhether you're building your first structured app or looking to refactor an existing project into something cleaner and more scalable, this guide will help you lay a solid architectural foundation, fast.Before we jump in though, let's take a quick look at last week's highlights:📱 What's new in .NET MAUI for .NET 10🍏 Introducing Temporal Swift SDK: Building durable and reliable workflows🦋 What’s new in Flutter 3.38🤖 Google will let ‘experienced users’ keep sideloading Android appsAI-Powered Development with Cursor WorkshopAccelerate your coding workflow and ship apps faster with Cursor, Supabase, and OpenAI.Book Your Spot🗓️ Nov 29, 2025| 8:30 AM – 12:30 PM (ET) |Virtual🎟️ 40% OFFwith codeCURSOR40+ 2 FREE e-booksAfter Purchase, Fill This Form to Claim Your Free E-Books!Meet the AuthorsAlex FSenior Android DeveloperNatWest GroupEran BDirectorMitteloupe LimitedAlexandru DPrincipal Android EngineerNutmegJomar TLecturerDe La Salle University🚀 Improve Your Android Project with the MVVM and Repository Architectural PatternsWhen you develop an Android application, you may tend to write most of the code (including business logic) in activities or fragments. This will make your project hard to test and maintain later. As your project grows and becomes more complex, the difficulty also increases. There is one way to improve your projects: architectural patterns.Architectural patterns are general solutions for designing and developing parts of applications, especially for large apps. There are architectural patterns you can use to structure your project into different layers (the presentation layer, the user interface (UI) layer, and the data layer) or functions (observer/observable). With architectural patterns, you can organize your code in a way that makes it scalable and easier for you to develop, test, and maintain.Listing the different architectural patternsFor Android development, commonly used patterns include Model-View-Controller (MVC), Model-View-Presenter (MVP), and Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM). The recommended architectural pattern is MVVM. You will also glean information about the Repository pattern. You can learn more about these patterns from authors Alex Forrester, Eran Boudjnah, Alexandru Dumbravan, and Jomar Tigcal in the third edition of How to Build Android Applications with Kotlin.Getting started with MVVMModel-View-ViewModel (MVVM) allows you to separate the UI and business logic. When you need to redesign the UI or update the model/business logic, you only need to touch the relevant component without affecting the other components of your app. This will make it easier for you to add new features and test your existing code. MVVM is also useful in creating huge applications that use a lot of data and views.With the MVVM architectural pattern, your application will be grouped into three components:Model: This represents the data layerView: This is the UI that displays the dataViewModel: This fetches datafrom Model and provides it to ViewThe MVVM architectural pattern can be understood better through the following diagram:Breaking down the MVVM patternThe Model contains the data of the application.Meanwhile, the activities, fragments, and layouts that your users see and interact with are the views in MVVM. Views only deal with how the app looks. They let ViewModel know about user actions (such as opening an activity or clicking on a button).ViewModel links View and Model. ViewModels handle the business logic by processing the data, where it retrieves it from the data layer, creates the required functions to solve your business needs, and then re-routes the processed information back to the UI layer by binding to it. Views subscribe to the ViewModel and update the UI when a value changes.You can use Jetpack’s ViewModel to create the ViewModel classes for your app. Jetpack’s ViewModel is lifecycle-aware and is typically tied to its lifecycle-owner (activity or fragment) so you don’t need to handle it yourself.For example, if you’re working on an app that displays movies, you could have MovieViewModel. This ViewModel will have a function that fetches a list of movies:class MovieViewModel : ViewModel() {   private val _movies: MutableStateFlow<List<Movie>>   fun movies: StateFlow<List<Movie>> { ... }   ...}Flow was used instead of LiveData as it is more flexible and is integrated with coroutines. In your activity, you can create ViewModel instance using ViewModelProvider:class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {    private val movieViewModel by lazy {        ViewModelProvider(this).get( MovieViewModel::class.java )    }    ...}Then, you can connect to the movies flow from ViewModel and automatically update the list on the UI when the list of movies changes:override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {    ...    lifecycleScope.launch {        repeatOnLifecycle(Lifecycle.State.STARTED) {            launch {                movieViewModel.movies.collect {                    movies ->                    movieAdapter.addMovies(movies)                }          }    }    }    ...}Views are notified when values in ViewModel have changed. You can also use data binding to connect View with the data from ViewModel. You can call the data layer from ViewModel. To reduce its complexity, you can use the Repository pattern for loading and caching data.Implementing the Repository patternInstead of ViewModel directly calling the services for getting and storing data, it should delegate that task to another component, such as a repository.With the Repository pattern, you can move the code in the ViewModel class that handles the data layer into a separate class. This reduces the complexity of ViewModel, making it easier to maintain and test. The repository will manage where the data is fetched and stored, just as if the local database or the network service were used to get or store data:In ViewModel, you can add a property for the repository:class MovieViewModel(val repository: MovieRepository):ViewModel() { ...}ViewModel will get the movies from the repository, or it can listen to them. It will not know where you actually got the list from.You can create a repository interface that connects to a data source, such as in the following example:interface MovieRepository { fun getMovies(): List<Movie>}The MovieRepository interface has a getMovies function that your repository implementation class will override to fetch movies from the data source. You can also have a single repository class that handles the fetching of data from either the local database or from your remote endpoint.When using the local database as the data source for your repository, you can use the Room library, which makes it easier for you to work with the SQLite database by writing less code and having compile-time checks on queries. To learn more about adding the Repository pattern with Room to an Android project, check out the third edition of How to Build Android Applications with Kotlin by Alex Forrester, Eran Boudjnah, Alexandru Dumbravan, and Jomar Tigcal.🚀Build real-world Android apps with Kotlin and the Jetpack Compose UI framework🧵Leverage the latest libraries to accelerate your Android development✨Overcome development challenges with tips and tricks from experienced Android professionalsHow to Build Android Applications with KotlinBuy now at $37.99!👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this new format of MobilePro.P.S.: If you have any suggestions or feedback, help us improve by sharing your thoughts. Click on the survey below.Take the Survey!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #199: iOS 26.2 Beta 3, Temporal Swift SDK, new Flutter release, What’s new in .NET MAUI, and more…Hi ,Welcome to another week of MobilePro; this is edition no. 199.The Swift team has just dropped the Temporal Swift SDK, which is worth your attention if you’ve had to build a workflow that lives for hours, days or even longer. Instead of wiring up custom retry logic, state machines, and “what if this crashes at 3 a.m.?” safeguards, you can now write your workflow logic in plain Swift using async/await while Temporal handles the heavy lifting behind the scenes. This implies cleaner code, less boilerplate, and a far more reliable backbone for anything your mobile app depends on.Remember though that it’s early days. While the Temporal Swift SDK handles the big problems (failures, retries, and long-runs), it will also introduce new patterns (deterministic workflows, activity retries, and worker setup) that you’ll have to learn. However, if you’re already writing Swift services, this might be the right time to ask, “Do we build this orchestration in a separate system… or just do it in Swift?”That’s not all the news this week. Let’s dive in.📱 Google allows “experienced users” to keep sideloading apps, adding a safer advanced flow while easing back on strict developer verification rules.🍏 iOS & iPadOS 26.2 Beta 3 adds HealthKit hypertension alerts, new App Store APIs, and key fixes, while noting issues with AirDrop and TLS changes.🔥 Firebase Apple SDK 12.6.0 ships with Server Prompt Template support and Remote Config fixes, improving reliability for iOS developers.🦋 Flutter 3.38 arrives with cleaner Dart syntax, better web tooling, and stronger platform integration, enhancing speed, UI capabilities, and developer experience.🌐 .NET MAUI for .NET 10 boosts quality with new telemetry, improved controls, and platform upgrades, streamlining diagnostics, animations, and cross-device development.Stick around for this week’sDeveloper Tip to learn about that one Swift mistake you should avoidandtheDid You Know? section to know how Snapchat open sources cross-platform UI framework.AI-Powered Development with Cursor WorkshopAccelerate your coding workflow and ship apps faster with Cursor, Supabase, and OpenAI.Book Your Spot!📅 Nov 29, 2025 | 8:30 AM – 12:30 PM (ET) | 💻 Virtual🎟️ 40% OFF with code CURSOR40 + 2 FREE e-booksAfter Purchase, Fill This Form to Claim Your FREE E-books!📱 What's Happening in Mobile Development?If there’s any major news in the world of mobile app dev in the last week, MobilePro has you covered.iOSiOS & iPadOS 26.2 Beta 3 Release Notes: iOS & iPadOS 26.2 Beta 3 introduces new features like Hypertension notifications in HealthKit and the AppStore age rating API, while fixing issues in Instruments and StoreKit. Known issues include discoverability problems with AirDrop and TLS fingerprint changes that may affect server communications.Firebase Apple SDK Release Notes: Firebase released version 12.6.0, adding support for Server Prompt Templates in Firebase AI Logic and fixing bugs in Remote Config, including issues with device restore and data race conditions.AndroidGoogle will let ‘experienced users’ keep sideloading Android apps: As Google scales back its plan for mandatory developer verification by introducing a 2026 “experienced-user” path for safely sideloading unverified apps, the community welcomes the restored freedom but remains wary, seeing the new safeguards as a necessary protection for vulnerable users yet also fearing creeping control, mixed motives, and potential erosion of Android’s openness.November Pixel Drop is here, bringing upgraded notifications, better scam detection, and more: The November Pixel Drop introduces new features like notification summaries, scam detection, and themed packs, starting with Pixel 6 and newer. It also expands tools like Call Notes, device health, and accessibility features across various Pixel models, enhancing security, customization, and user experience.What’s new in Android’s November 2025 Google System Updates: The November 2025 Android system update introduces improvements across Google services, including bug fixes, enhanced developer tools, and new features for Wallet, Play Store, and system management. It also expands functionality for devices like Wear OS, Android TV, Auto, and PC, focusing on security, stability, and user convenience.Raising the bar on battery performance: excessive partial wake locks metric is now out of beta: With Google Android now making excessive partial wake-lock metrics broadly available to push developers toward more power-efficient apps, users, who are increasingly frustrated by battery drain and unreliable notifications caused by poorly optimized apps, hope this transparency will finally drive meaningful improvements in app behavior and overall device experience.Android’s next trick could let you tap phones together to share info, just like iPhones: Android may soon introduce a tap-to-share feature similar to iPhone’s NameDrop, allowing users to exchange contact info quickly by tapping phones together or using a sharing gesture. Discovered in Google Play Services code, this new system aims to make contact sharing faster, more private, and seamless, potentially improving social and professional exchanges. It’s still in development, but could significantly enhance Android’s sharing capabilities once released.Cross-platform & OtherSkip Fuse is now free for Indie Developers: Skip Fuse is now free for Indie developers, allowing them to build cross-platform apps using native SwiftUI for iOS and Jetpack Compose for Android with high performance and native UI. The mode compiles Swift directly to Android, enabling shared logic and UI without translation overhead. This makes it an ideal tool for indie developers to create seamless, native apps for both platforms.Flutter 3.38 is out: Flutter 3.38 introduces new features like dot shorthands for more concise Dart code, improved web support with configuration and hot reload enhancements, and advanced UI controls. The release also boosts desktop and mobile platform integration, refines DevTools, and includes important updates for accessibility, performance, and compatibility, making development faster and more efficient.What's new in .NET MAUI for .NET 10: .NET MAUI in .NET 10 focuses on enhancing product quality with new features like the .NET Aspire integration for telemetry and service discovery, improved control and animation APIs, and advanced support for web, Android, and iOS platforms. It also introduces a streamlined XAML namespace experience, better diagnostics, and numerous control and performance improvements for a more robust cross-platform development experience.If you’re writing Swift code, check out this sharp insight by Paul Hudson at Hacking With Swift. It shows how overlooking value vs. reference types (especially with struct vs class) can lead to subtle bugs and performance issues, even in everyday mobile app code. Especially relevant for SwiftUI or data-model workflows where mutation semantics matter.In case you have any tips to share with your fellow mobile developers, do reply to this mail and we’d be glad to feature you in a future edition of MobilePro.💭 What is the Mobile Community Talking About?What are mobile app developers discussing? Do you have any concerns, advice, or tutorials to share?MobileProbrings them to you all in one place.A deep dive into Collections, Sequences, and Iterators in Swift: This deep-dive breaks down how Swift’s iteration system really works—from Sequence and Collection to async iteration—giving iOS developers a clearer picture of what happens behind every for…in loop. It highlights practical insights for building performant, predictable data flows in mobile apps, and warns about common pitfalls like mutating during iteration.From Swift to Mojo: Lessons in Language Design and High-Performance Engineering: This interview with Chris Lattner, creator of Swift and Mojo, explores how modern programming languages and compilers are evolving to meet the needs of high-performance systems and AI-driven workloads. It highlights the design principles behind Swift, the motivations for creating Mojo, and why language tooling and compiler efficiency remain essential for building fast, scalable software across mobile and emerging compute platforms.Google Summer of Code 2025 and Kotlin: Kotlin’s participation in GSoC 2025 delivered several valuable open-source improvements, including upgrades to build tooling, better Kotlin Multiplatform support, and work on modern developer tooling like language-server enhancements. These projects strengthen the ecosystem for Android and cross-platform developers, with many contributions already making their way into real-world workflows.Compose Stability Analyzer for Jetpack Compose: A new open-source tool provides real-time insights into the stability and recomposition behavior of your Jetpack Compose UI functions directly from within Android Studio or IntelliJ, helping Android developers spot potentially costly UI updates and understand why certain composables are flagged as unstable.📚️ Latest in Mobile Development from PacktMobilePro presents the latest titles from Packt that ought to be useful for mobile developers.A perfect book for aspiring UX/UI designers who want to get started with Figma as well as established designers who want to migrate to Figma from other design tools.✨ Third edition of the bestselling book, updated with a new project, refreshed interface, and the latest design trends🧩 Build adaptive, production-ready UIs using variables, modes, components, variants, AI, and Auto Layout🔀 Prototype advanced user flows with conditional interactions and interactive componentsDesigning and Prototyping Interfaces with FigmaPre-order now at $47.49! Snapchat has open-sourced Valdi, the cross-platform UI framework it has relied on internally for nearly a decade. Built in TypeScript and compiled directly to native iOS, Android, and macOS views, Valdi skips web views and JS bridges entirely, the same approach Snapchat uses to keep its UI fast and responsive at massive scale.Sourced from The New Stack.👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this edition of MobilePro. If you have any suggestions and feedback, or would just like to say hi to us, please write to us. Just respond to this email!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #198: Design Meets Dev - Turning Friction into FlowHi ,Welcome to the 198th edition of MobilePro!Designers and developers: two teams chasing the same goal, yet often speaking completely different languages. What starts as a clean Figma file can turn into confusion once it hits the codebase: layouts break, intent gets lost, and frustration builds on both sides. It’s not only a communication problem but also a mindset gap.However, it doesn’t have to be this way. With a few simple shifts in process and perspective, design–dev collaboration can move from friction to flow.In this issue of MobilePro, we’re breaking down practical ways to bridge that gap, so teams can move faster and build better together. You’ll learn how to:Align early by involving developers from day oneCreate a shared vocabulary that eliminates translation errorsUse Figma’s Dev Mode to simplify handoffsBuild a feedback loop that keeps everyone in syncThis is an excerpt from the bookDesign Beyond Limits with Figmawritten by Šimon Jůn.Before we jump in though, let's take a quick look at last week's highlights:📱New Siri to use Google Gemini🔔 iOS 26.1 Update🧩 Android 16 GSI Released🤝 Cursor 2.0Take the Survey!Meet the AuthorŠimon Jůn is a design-led product leader and Chief Operating Officer at Dotidot, based in Prague, Czechia. Beginning his career as a product designer, he rose to the role of Chief Product Officer and now shapes company strategy as COO—giving him a unique perspective that spans hands-on design work and executive decision-making.As the official Czech host of Friends ofFigma, Šimon organizes community events and talks that foster open knowledge sharing. Through his workshops and online training programs, he has helped hundreds of teams streamline theirFigmaworkflows and bridge the gap between designers and developers.Bridging communication gaps between designers and developersOne of the most persistent challenges in product development is the interaction between designers and developers. While both disciplines work toward the same goal, that is, creating functional, user-friendly products, they often approach problems from entirely different perspectives, leading to friction and miscommunication.What’s the problem?Designers and developers are two essential forces in product development, but they often struggle to understand each other. As a designer, it’s important to remember that what you create in Figma isn’t the final product—the production code is. However, despite working toward the same goal, many teams face miscommunication that goes beyond just different terminologies and perspectives.The challenges run much deeper than word choices. Designers and developers operate with fundamentally different mental models. Designers work with fluid, relational thinking, placing elements freely in space and considering visual hierarchy and flow—much like how Figma’s free-canvas approach works. Developers, on the other hand, operate within structured, hierarchical frameworks shaped by how code, databases, and systems are organized. They think in terms of top-to-bottom sequences, nested structures, and rigid organizational principles. This fundamental difference in spatial thinking creates natural tension when translating design to code.Additionally, there’s often a knowledge gap around existing technical infrastructure. New designers, and even experienced ones joining a project, may lack the historical context of how current systems were built, what technical constraints exist, or what potential blockers might arise from legacy code. Understanding the production environment and existing technical architecture is crucial for creating designs that work within real-world constraints, not just in an ideal vacuum.Here are some common terminology differences between Figma and code:Understanding these differences is crucial to ensuring a smoother workflow and more effective collaboration between designers and developers.How to fix itTo bridge this gap, designersand developers mustactively work toward a common understanding:Involve developers early: Bringing developers into the design process from the start ensures technical feasibility and helps avoid late-stage surprises. Make sure everyone understands the purpose behind design decisions through clear design annotation. I highly recommend walking through the entire design with developers, explicitly describing each screen and interaction rather than assuming anything is obvious. This serves two crucial purposes: developers can challenge your solutions and gain a deep understanding of user flows and interactions, while you, as a designer, can catch hidden flaws you might have missed during the design phase or that went unnoticed during design critiques.Establish a shared vocabulary: Document and define key terms that designers and developers use differently. This makes communication clearer and reduces misunderstandings. Consider using tools such as Storybook or similar documentation platforms to create a shared reference point where both teams can see how design components translate to code, helping establish common terminology and understanding.Use Figma’s Dev Mode: Leverage Figma’s developer handoff features to provide precise specifications and make it easier for developers to inspect design elements.Encourage cross-team learning: Designers should develop a basic understanding of development constraints, while developers should familiarize themselves with design principles.Create a feedback loop: Regularly review designs together to ensure alignment and address potential issues before they escalate. Remember that this loop goes both ways. Designers should also be involved in QA processes to verify that implementations match design intent, helping prevent details from getting lost in translation. Make sure everyone knows their roles and responsibilities, and establish clear points of contact so team members know who to reach out to when questions or ambiguities arise.There are two primary ways to establish continuous feedback loops:Scheduled weekly feedback sessions: This is the most common approach, where teams set up recurring calendar meetings for feedback. Designers present their progress, and other designers and developers discuss any necessary changes or improvements.Daily asynchronous feedback: A more fluid approach, which I personally prefer, involves integrating feedback into the team’s everyday workflow. At Dotidot, designers and developers provide feedback asynchronously at the end of each day using Loom recordings. This fosters a culture where feedback is a natural and ongoing part of collaboration, rather than being confined to structured meetings.Even if your team lacks hybrid designer developers, followingthese practices will save significant time, reduce confusion, and create a more seamless workflow between both disciplines.If you want to explore more such tips and tricks, thenDesign Beyond Limits forFigmais for you.🚀Level up into a highly sought-after designerthrough expert techniques and battle-tested workflows🧵Learn faster with a hands-on guidebuilt around practical, recipe-based approach✨Put Al to work inFigmawith workflowsthat speed up content, assets, and cleanup while saving hoursDesign Beyond Limits withFigmaBuy now at $44.99!👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this new format of MobilePro.P.S.: If you have any suggestions or feedback, help us improve by sharing your thoughts. Click on the survey below.Take the Survey!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #197: Swift SDK for Android, Siri to use Gemini, Android 16 GSI, and more…Join Microsoft experts Christoffer Noring and Maxim Salnikov for a 1-day MCP Workshop on November 15, 2025Christoffer, a Senior Advocate at Microsoft and Google Developer Expert, and Maxim, a seasoned Microsoft Solution Engineer with 20+ years in software development, will guide you through mastering the Model Context Protocol (MCP), the backbone of next-gen agentic AI applications.Get 40% off your ticket using code MCP40, a limited-time offer for MobilePro subscribers only!Book My Seat!!Hi ,Welcome to another week of MobilePro; this is edition no. 197.Swift on Android is actually happening. Did I think I would be saying that soon? No. But Apple’s Swift team just started rolling out nightly Swift SDKs for Android. For years, Swift was this tightly bound iOS language. Android and Swift lived in different worlds; iOS had a “you do Kotlin, I’ll do Swift” kind of relationship with Android. But now, Swift’s knocking on Android’s door like it’s been saying, in the words of Swift’s popstar namesake, “you belong with me.” The SDK lets you build, test, and even run Swift apps on Android, with interoperability for Java and Kotlin baked in. It’s still early, but this changes how we think about building for both platforms.Imagine writing your shared logic, that is, networking, models, even business rules, in Swift and reusing that code across iOS and Android builds. You’d still have native UI layers, but the engine underneath could stay consistent. That’s where this SDK nudges us: toward more Swift-first cross-platform development, and not through a framework like Flutter or React Native but via native builds powered by a common language. And since the SDK is being updated nightly, tooling, package compatibility, and documentation should mature fast.That said, it’s not all smooth roads just yet. Debugging’s still rough, Android Studio isn’t exactly Swift-friendly, and the Java bridge needs some love. But if you’re already deep in Swift, maybe using it on the backend too, then this might be the next logical step. One toolchain, one mindset, less context-switching. Who knows, maybe in a year or two, “Swift everywhere” won’t sound that crazy anymore, fulfilling the Wildest Dreams of mobile devs everywhere.That’s not all the news this week. Let’s dive in.📱 New Siri to use Google Gemini: Apple’s next-gen Siri, launching in 2026, will use a custom Gemini model hosted on Apple servers, blending AI smarts with Apple’s privacy focus.🔔 iOS 26.1 Update: Adds a toggle for “Liquid Glass,” new alarm gesture, UI tweaks, expanded translation languages, and easier background security updates.🧩 Android 16 GSI Released: Google’s Android 16 GSI is out for developers to test app compatibility on Treble-compliant devices.💻 Compose Multiplatform Milestone: Now supports stable iOS builds and web beta, enabling shared Kotlin UI across all platforms.🤝 Cursor 2.0: Introduces parallel multi-agent support, up to eight AI agents working independently within one workspace.Stick around for this week’sDeveloper Tipto learn how to navigate updating React Native from 0.72 to 0.76 andtheDid You Know?section to learn the findings of a Lead Dev report.82% of data breaches happen in the cloudThe reality is you can’t stop every single attack so survival depends on how fast you can recover.Join us for the Cloud Resilience Summit on December 10th to:Build true cyber resilience by shifting to an “assume breach” strategyGain practical, real-world cloud insightsEnsure rapid business recovery and minimal financial impact with a cloud restoration strategySave My Spot📱 What's Happening in Mobile Development?If there’s any major news in the world of mobile app dev in the last week, MobilePro has you covered.iOSNew Version of Siri to 'Lean' on Google Gemini: Apple’s revamped Siri, due around March 2026, will reportedly use a custom Gemini-based model from Google, hosted on Apple’s own secure servers, to power new AI and web-search features alongside upcoming hardware like a smart home display and new Apple TV. Redditors are split: some see it as a smart, pragmatic upgrade, while others worry it signals Apple’s AI shortcomings and threatens Siri’s privacy-first brand.iOS 26.1 Features: Everything New in iOS 26.1: The iOS 26.1 update introduces refinements such as a toggle for the “Liquid Glass” transparency effect, a new slide-to-stop alarm gesture, and expanded language support for both Apple Intelligence and AirPods Live Translation. It also adds UI tweaks (e.g., left-aligned folder names and settings headers), and makes background security updates easier to install via a new toggle in Settings.AndroidAndroid 16 GSI Release: Google has released the Android 16 Generic System Image (GSI) for developers to test app compatibility on Treble-compliant devices. These experimental builds, created from the same source as Pixel firmware, may contain bugs or missing features and can erase data during installation. The update details known issues and provides flashing instructions for supported devices.Google upgrades Gemini AI for Android enterprise apps: Google has upgraded its Gemini AI capabilities for Android enterprise apps, introducing the new Alpha-release ML Kit GenAI Prompt API which allows on-device AI via the Gemini Nano model, enhancing data privacy, offline functionality, and reducing latency. The update also brings cloud-based enhancements through Firebase, AI-powered features in the Play Console and Android Studio, targeting secure, efficient enterprise application workflows and development.Material 3 Adaptive 1.2.0 is stable: Google has released Material 3 Adaptive 1.2.0, now marked as stable and adding support for Large and Extra-large window size classes, along with two new layout strategies: reflow and levitate, to improve adaptive UI across varied screen sizes.Cross-platform & OtherCompose Multiplatform Marks Two Major Milestones: Stable iOS Support and Web in Beta: Compose Multiplatform has hit two major milestones: it now offers stable iOS support and has introduced a web-beta release, enabling truly shared Kotlin UI code across Android, iOS, desktop and web.Flutter 3.35.7 is out: Google has released Flutter 3.35.7, a minor update that includes two fixes and performance improvements. Developers can review the full details in the Changeolog and share feedback through the official Flutter channels.Artificial Intelligence (AI)Cursor 2.0 enables eight agents to work in parallel without interfering with each other: Cursor 2.0 introduces a new multi-agent interface that enables up to eight AI agents to work in parallel on a single prompt, each in an isolated workspace to avoid conflicts.If you’re planning to upgrade React Native from 0.72 to 0.76 (or beyond), check out this practical post: React Native 0.72 → 0.76: Lessons From the Trenches by Abijith B. It walks through real-world build issues (e.g., Java 17, NDK mismatches, missing module-maps) and offers hands-on fixes and workflow insights. Especially helpful if you’re on Android API 35 or need to refactor native config while keeping your codebase stable.In case you have any tips to share with your fellow mobile developers, do reply to this mail and we’d be glad to feature you in a future edition of MobilePro.💭 What is the Mobile Community Talking About?What are mobile app developers discussing? Do you have any concerns, advice, or tutorials to share?MobileProbrings them to you all in one place.Liquid Glass components now playable in Compose Multiplatform: A deep dive into how modern blur and glass-morphism effects are being brought to Compose MP, with tips on using native iOS blur APIs, fallback modes for older platforms, and modifier-based wrappers to maintain fluid visuals across Android and iOS. The article walks you through real-world patterns and composable setups so you can bring that premium translucent polish to multi-platform UIs.Integrating device camera in SwiftUI apps and how to bridge AVFoundation with SwiftUI: If you’re building camera-powered features (photo capture, scanning, AR) in SwiftUI, this guide walks through using a CameraManager (ObservableObject) + UIViewRepresentable wrapper to connect AVFoundation’s AVCaptureSession, AVCapturePhotoOutput, and preview layer into a SwiftUI view. It highlights the key patterns, such as managing session lifecycles, creating the preview layer in UIKit, and cleanly handling captured images, so you can keep your UI declarative while tackling imperative camera APIs.7 playful micro-interactions every iOS developer should build: This article walks you through how adding small, delightful animations, like button bounce, subtle state changes, and interactive feedback, can bring your SwiftUI apps to life and make them feel vastly more engaging without complex overhaul.Lynx.js: The hybrid mobile framework you haven’t heard of yet: Meet Lynx.js, a new cross-platform framework from ByteDance (yes, the TikTok folks) that uses JavaScript and CSS to build native apps across iOS, Android, and web, with a high-performance, dual-threaded engine for smoother UI. It blends web-dev familiarity with native speed, making it a compelling option for mobile devs looking to target multiple platforms without jumping into Dart or React Native bridges.Mastering SwiftUI Picker: a complete guide for modern iOS apps: This guide walks iOS developers through using SwiftUI’s Picker, from basic bindings, to choosing the correct .pickerStyle(_:) (like inline, segmented, menu, wheel) for your UI, and handling distinctions between Picker, DatePicker, and ColorPicker; it backs up the how with the why so you can pick styles that actually suit your app’s context and user needs.📚️ Latest in Mobile Development from PacktMobilePro presents the latest titles from Packt that ought to be useful for mobile developers.A perfect book for UX and UI designers who already have a basic understanding of Figma and want to advance beyond the fundamentals.Design Beyond Limits with FigmaBuy now at $44.99! A recent LeadDev report found that Cursor has overtaken GitHub Copilot as the most-used AI tool among developers, with 43% using Cursor compared to 37% for Copilot. Most developers now rely on AI for coding, documentation, and learning, while adoption for testing or deployment remains low. Despite productivity gains, many teams are still unsure how to measure AI’s real impact.Sourced from The News Stack.👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this edition of MobilePro. If you have any suggestions and feedback, or would just like to say hi to us, please write to us. Just respond to this email!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #196: Mission Possible—The Model Context ProtocolHi ,Welcome to the 196th edition of MobilePro!APIs changed how apps talk to each other. Now, a new protocol is changing how apps talk to AI. Imagine asking your assistant to open a GitHub issue, tweak a 3D model in Blender, or fetch a location from Google Maps, all through natural language. No clicks. No complex integrations. Just context.That’s the promise of the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a new open standard that bridges AI models and applications. If REST was built for the web, MCP is built for the AI era. It’s how we move from static APIs to dynamic, conversational systems that understand intent and act intelligently.In this issue of MobilePro, we’ll unpack what MCP is, why it matters, and how it’s reshaping how developers build and connect software. You’ll discover:How we evolved from SOAP → REST → GraphQL → gRPC → MCPWhy standardization is key to AI-powered interoperabilityWhat real-world tools like GitHub, Blender, and Playwright are already doing with itHow MCP lays the groundwork for the agentic future, where AI doesn’t just respond, it actsThis isn’t just another API story, it’s the next leap in how humans, apps, and AI collaborate.This is excerpted from the bookLearn Model Context Protocol with Python, written by Christoffer Noring.Before we jump in though, let's take a quick look at last week's highlights:🚀 Introducing HeroUI Native alpha 15📼 Swift Profile Recorder📱 Hackers can steal 2FA codes and private messages from Android phones🤖 Meet the Flutter Extension for Gemini CLITake the Survey!Meet the AuthorChristoffer Noring is a passionate developer and educator who specializes in modern web technologies and AI integrations and works as an engineer at Microsoft. He’s also a tutor at the University of Oxford and is a published author on Angular, RxJs, generative AI, and now MCP. Christoffer has almost two decades of experience in software development and is a frequent speaker at tech conferences worldwide. According to his manager, his best quality is being able to break down complex technical concepts into simple, understandable terms.🚀 The Model Context ProtocolWe’ve gone from REST to GraphQL to gRPC, but now it’s time for a new mission (should you choose to accept it!). One that isn’t about APIs, but about how apps and AI talk to each other. Imagine controlling GitHub, Blender, or Google Maps through natural language. That’s the Model Context Protocol (MCP), the Mission Possible of the AI era, where seamless connection is no longer fiction.🧠 From SOAP to MCP: The Journey to a Standard for the AI EraIf you’ve been around long enough to remember SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), you probably remember the pain. XML everywhere, verbose requests, endless WSDL files. REST (Representational State Transfer) came along and felt like a breath of fresh JSON air, simple, intuitive, and perfect for the web.Then frontend teams started wanting just the data they needed, and GraphQL entered the chat. It made fetching data flexible but brought new headaches: over-fetching, under-fetching, and the infamous N+1 problem.Next up: gRPC (Google Remote Procedure Call). Google’s high-performance framework for microservices, powered by HTTP/2 and Protocol Buffers. Great for speed, not so much for simplicity.Each protocol fixed something but broke something else.Now, in the age of AI and natural language interfaces, we’ve hit a new question: how do we let AI interact with our apps as easily as users do?⚙️ The Need for a Common LanguageAs developers, we’re great at gluing systems together, REST, RPCs, SDKs, you name it. But that flexibility has a cost: complexity.We now live in a world where prompts are becoming the new UI. Users don’t want to click through menus; they want to ask. So how do we make our apps expose their capabilities to AI models in a way that’s standardized and understandable?Enter the MCP (Model Context Protocol), an open standard that lets apps describe what they can do and how to interact with them. Think of it like USB-C for AI applications: plug in, and everything just works.🚀 What MCP EnablesWith MCP, any app can act as a server exposing capabilities, and any client (like an AI model or agent) can use them.Take Blender, for example. There’s already a Blender MCP server that lets you control Blender through prompts. You can:Get scene and object informationCreate, delete, and modify shapesApply or create materials for objectsExecute any Python code in BlenderDownload the right models, assets, and HDRIs through Poly HavenGenerate AI-powered 3D modelsOther big names like GitHub, Playwright, and Google Maps are also adopting MCP (see the full list here).Suddenly, anything can have a natural language interface, not just chatbots, but tools, data, and systems.🤖 We All Get a JarvisIf this sounds like Iron Man’s Jarvis, you’re not far off. The way we build our applications is changing and becoming more standardized. By learning and using MCP, all your apps will be able to communicate with each other and share data in a standardized way. That means you will spend less time worrying about how to connect, or glue, your app to other apps and more time building the features that matter. MCP is what makes the agentic era possible, where AI doesn’t just respond to you but acts on your behalf.Want your assistant to fetch GitHub issues, deploy code, and update docs, just from your prompt? That’s the kind of interoperability MCP is building toward.🏁 The Big PictureMCP isn’t just another API standard. It’s the protocol rewriting the mission brief for developers. Less glue code, more productivity, and endless new possibilities for how software and users interact. In the world of AI, this mission isn’t impossible; it’s just getting started.If you want to learn more about MCP, then Learn Model Context Protocol with Pythonis the book for you!🚀The only resource you'll need to build, test, and deploy MCP servers and clients🧵Take a modern approach toward building, testing, and securing distributed agentic AI apps✨Get clear, professional guidance on developing for both LLM and non-LLM clientsLearn Model Context Protocol with PythonBuy now at $44.99!👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this new format of MobilePro.P.S.: If you have any suggestions or feedback, help us improve by sharing your thoughts. Click on the survey below.Take the Survey!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #195: React Conf 2025, HeroUI Native alpha 15, Pixnapping, and more…Hi ,Welcome to another week of MobilePro; this is edition no. 195.Apple’s been up to something interesting again, but this time with Swift. They’ve just released Swift Profile Recorder, and it’s a bit of a game changer if you’ve ever tried profiling your backend apps without losing your sanity. Swift Profile Recorder is an open-source in-process sampler that doesn’t need kernel hooks or special privileges; you just flip an environment variable, and it starts recording performance data right inside your app.What I like about it is how it fits neatly into the workflow. It works on both macOS and Linux, and it spits out results in formats developers already use, whether perf, pprof, collapsed stacks, you name it. You can take that data straight into whatever visualization tool you’re comfortable with. The important thing to note is that Apple says they’ve been using it internally for a while now, which adds a bit of confidence that this isn’t just another experimental repo that’ll fade away in six months.Still, I guess it’s worth asking: will this finally make Swift a first-class citizen in the backend profiling space? Does this signal that Swift backend is getting serious enough that your full-stack (!) can now be Swift-end-to-end, with mature tooling? Either way, the fact that Apple’s investing in something this polished tells us that Swift’s server-side ambitions are alive and kicking. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to give Swift another look beyond your iPhone screen.That’s not all the news this week. Let’s dive in.Ship Faster!Spot bottlenecks early, keep engineers in flow, and deliver up to 30% faster.Get a Demo📱 What's Happening in Mobile Development?If there’s any major news in the world of mobile app dev in the last week, MobilePro has you covered.iOSRelease of iOS & iPadOS 26.1 Beta 3: iOS & iPadOS 26.1 bring refinements like a new slide-to-stop gesture for alarms/timers, background security auto-updates, better iPad multitasking (Slide Over returns!), and tweaks to app layouts and UI elements. Developers are already digging in and testing across betas.New requirement for apps using Sign in with Apple for account creation: Beginning January 1, 2026, developers in South Korea must register a server-to-server notification endpoint for Sign in with Apple so that they receive alerts about account deletions or email-forwarding changes. Heads up, devs: even though this rule is Korea-specific for now, Apple’s emails-and-deletions notifications are available via API, and it’s smart to build support for them proactively.A major evolution of Apple Security Bounty: Apple is supercharging its Security Bounty program. The top award is now $2 million (and can exceed $5 million with bonuses), new exploit categories like one-click WebKit escapes and wireless proximity attacks are added, and a “Target Flags” system lets researchers validate vulnerability severity immediately.AndroidHackers can steal 2FA codes and private messages from Android phones: A newly discovered Android flaw called Pixnapping lets malicious apps silently steal 2FA codes (and even private messages) directly from your screen, no permissions required. Google’s September patch had a workaround, but researchers say the exploit still persists; a fuller fix is expected by December.The Android 16 QPR2 Beta 3 update has gone MIA: Android 16 QPR2 Beta 3 was pulled after some Pixel users reported bootloops. The update had introduced improvements like home-screen shortcut pinning and bug fixes, devs are watching closely for the next safe rollout.Android Studio Narwhal 4 Feature Drop: Android Studio Narwhal 4 is now stable — it adds first-class declarative Wear OS watch face support, lets you set Project view as default, and addresses over 550 bugfixes for a smoother, more stable IDE experience.Jetpack WindowManager 1.5 is stable: Jetpack WindowManager 1.5.0 is now stable, introducing the Breakpoints API, improved embedding support, and more reliable metrics for foldables and large layouts. Devs are buzzing, this version finally feels production-ready for adaptive, multi-window Android apps.Cross-platform & OtherReact Conf 2025 dropped some major upgrades: React 19.2 introduces <Activity />, useEffectEvent, and performance wins with Partial Pre-Rendering and new DevTools profiling. React Native’s 0.82 release pushes the new architecture, modern web-aligned APIs, and experimental Hermes V1 — a confident step into the framework’s next era.Introducing React Native Harness: React Native just got a new testing boost: React Native Harness. It lets you run Jest-style tests directly on real devices or emulators, delivering native-level confidence without the E2E hassle. The devs are excited to try it, as testing native modules has long been a major pain point.Meet the Flutter Extension for Gemini CLI: Flutter just got a fresh tool: a Flutter extension for Gemini CLI. It adds commands for creating, building, testing, and running Flutter projects right from your terminal. Devs are curious to try it, especially since it promises to speed up everyday workflows.Introducing HeroUI Native alpha 15: HeroUI Native alpha 15 just dropped, bringing a sleek new Select component, revamped RadioGroup, Button, and Chip APIs, plus a batch of subtle polish across the board. A quiet yet confident release that refines the library’s core UX, and yes, the new Select even powers a Raycast-style AI model picker.Check out this developer tip on mastering Jetpack Compose recomposition, a must-read if you want smoother UI updates and better performance in your Android apps.In case you have any tips to share with your fellow mobile developers, do reply to this mail and we’d be glad to feature you in a future edition of MobilePro.💭 What is the Mobile Community Talking About?What are mobile app developers discussing? Do you have any concerns, advice, or tutorials to share?MobileProbrings them to you all in one place.Apple details how to manage the context window for on-device foundation models: In this technical note, Apple lays out strategies for handling the limited “context window” (i.e., the span of tokens the model can see) when running models locally, including methods like token prioritization, context trimming, and fallback logic for overflow. It helps developers design more reliable experiences by ensuring the right data stays in scope without overwhelming the on-device AI model.Android’s “Sensors Off” mode offers developers a quick privacy toggle to test sensor behavior: Developers can enable the hidden Sensors Off tile in Developer Options to instantly disable the camera, mic, and motion sensors. It’s a handy way to simulate privacy scenarios, validate permission handling, and ensure graceful fallbacks when sensor access is revoked.SwiftUI’s new glass styles: when and how auto-apply kicks in: In her write-up, Natascha Fadeeva shows how SwiftUI now sometimes auto-applies the .glass style to toolbar buttons and other views by default, and she breaks down how .glass and .glassEffect() differ, one being opinionated with system behaviors, the other flexible for custom use.📚️ Latest in Mobile Development from PacktMobilePro presents the latest titles from Packt that ought to be useful for mobile developers.A perfect book for UX and UI designers who already have a basic understanding of Figma and want to advance beyond the fundamentals.🏗️Level up into a highly sought-after designer through expert techniques and battle-tested workflows📚 Learn faster with a hands-on guide built around practical, recipe-based approach.🤖 Put Al to work in Figma with workflows that speed up content, assets, and cleanup while saving hoursDesign Beyond Limits with FigmaBuy now at $44.99! IBM is partnering with Anthropic to build an AI-powered IDE that embeds Claude models into developer tools — early internal tests showed a 45% jump in productivity.Sourced from Developer.👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this edition of MobilePro. If you have any suggestions and feedback, or would just like to say hi to us, please write to us. Just respond to this email!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #194: Behind Every Connected App—The Power of REST and APIsHi ,Welcome to the 194th edition of MobilePro!Every app needs data — but not all data is created equal. Some can live quietly inside your codebase, but the moment you need live updates, dynamic content, or anything that changes in real time, you have to reach beyond the app and talk to the web. That’s where REST and APIs step in.In this issue of MobilePro, we’re breaking down the backbone of modern app communication — RESTful APIs — and the formats that make them tick: JSON and XML. You’ll learn how these technologies let your app fetch, send, and process live data seamlessly, without constant code updates or manual refreshes.We’ll cover:How REST and HTTP work together to power modern web communicationThe difference between JSON and XML (and why JSON usually wins)How Kotlin’s Ktor and Serialization libraries make network calls effortlessWhether you’re new to backend interaction or just want a clearer picture of how data actually moves between your app and the web, this guide will get you there — fast.This is excerpted from the bookHow to Build Android Applications with Kotlin, written by Alex Forrester, Eran Boudjnah, Alexandru Dumbravan, and Jomar Tigcal.Before we jump in though, let's take a quick look at last week's highlights:🚀 Introducing the React Foundation🍎 Apple’s Foundation Models framework unlocks new app experiences powered by Apple Intelligence🤖 Introducing apps in ChatGPT and the new Apps SDK💻 Google’s coding agent Jules now works in the command lineTake the Survey!Join Snyk on October 22, 2025 at DevSecCon25 - Securing the Shift to AI NativeJoin Snyk October 22, 2025 for this one-day event to hear from leading AI and security experts from Qodo, Ragie.ai, Casco, Arcade.dev, and more!The agenda includes inspiring Mainstage keynotes, a hands-on AI Demos track on building secure AI, Snyk's very FIRST AI Developer Challenge and more!Save your spot nowMeet the AuthorsAlex FSenior Android DeveloperNatWest GroupEran BDirectorMitteloupe LimitedAlexandru DPrincipal Android EngineerNutmegJomar TLecturerDe La Salle University</> Introducing REST, API, JSON, and XMLData shown to users can be hardcoded (static) or fetched dynamically. Hardcoded data limits flexibility since updates require republishing the app. Dynamic or time-sensitive data, like exchange rates, weather, or asset availability, must be fetched from a server.A common architecture for serving such data is Representational State Transfer (REST).REST and APIsThe REST architecture isdefined by a set of six constraints: client-server architecture, statelessness, cacheability, a layered system, code on demand (optional), and a uniform interface.When applied to a web service application programming interface (API), we get a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)-based RESTful API. The HTTP protocol is thefoundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, hosted on and accessible via the internet. It is the protocol used by servers all around the world to serve websites to users in the form of HTML documents, images, style sheets, and so forth.Important noteAn interesting article on this topic can be found at Mozilla. You can learn more about HTTP here: W3Schools.RESTful APIs rely on the standard HTTP methods—GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, and PATCH—to fetch and transform data. These methods allow us to fetch, store, delete, and update data entities on remote servers.The Android platform includes an HttpURLConnection client to execute these HTTP methods. However, it has limited capabilities, so in modern Android projects, we commonly rely on third-party libraries instead. Common libraries for this purpose are Retrofit and Ktor. In this chapter, we will use Ktor. Ktor is an HTTP client and server library that was developed by JetBrains using Kotlin. We will use it to fetch data from web APIs.Most commonly, such data is represented by JSON.JSONJSON is a text-based data transfer format. As the name implies, it was derived from JavaScript. In fact, a JSON string can be used as-is as a valid data structure in JavaScript. JSON has become one of the most popular standards for data transfer, and its most modern programming languages have libraries that encode or decode data to or from JSON.A simple JSONpayload may look something like this:{ "employees": [ { "name": "James", "email": "james.notmyemail@gmail.com" }, { "name": "Lea", "email": "lea.dontemailme@gmail.com" } ]}XMLAnother common data structure used by RESTful services is Extensible Markup Language (XML), whichencodes documents in a human and machine-readable format. XML is considerably more verbose than JSON. The same data structure that was shown in the previous example, but in XML, would look something like this:<employees> <employee> <name>James</name> <email>james.notmyemail@gmail.com</email> </employee> <employee> <name>Lea</name> <email>lea.dontemailme@gmail.com</email> </employee></employees>Processing JSON payloadsWhen obtaining a JSON payload, we essentially receive a string. To convert that string into a data object, we have a few options, with the most popular ones being libraries such as Gson, Jackson, and Moshi. In Java, we also have the built-in org.json package, while in Kotlin, we have Kotlin Serialization. We will be using the Kotlin Serialization library. Like Ktor, it was developed by JetBrains. It is very lightweight and well-maintained.Now that we know what type of data we can commonly expect to use when communicating with network APIs, let’s see how we can communicate with these APIs.Fetching data from a network endpointWe will use The Cat API. This RESTful API offers us vast data about, well… cats.Setting up Ktor and internet permissionsTo get started, we will create a new project. To allow our app to make network calls, we have to grant our app the internet access install-time permission. We can do this by adding the following code to your AndroidManifest.xml file, right before the Application tag:<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />Next, we need to set up our app so that it includes Ktor. Ktor helps us generate Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), whichare the addresses of the server endpoints we want to access. It also makes decoding JSON payloads into Kotlin data structures easier by providing integration with several parsing libraries. Sending data to the server is also easier with Ktor, as it helps with encoding the requests from Kotlin data structures into JSON.To add Ktor to our project, we need to add the following dependencies to the build.gradle file of our app:"io.ktor:ktor-client-core:(latest version)""io.ktor:ktor-client-cio:(latest version)"The first line adds the main client functionality to our project, while the second line adds the CIO engine. Engines are Ktor’s mechanism for processing network requests. Different engines allow Ktor to run on different platforms. The CIO engine is a good choice for us because it supports Android, as well as Java virtual machines and native Kotlin.With Ktor included in our project, we can set the project up.Making API requests with Ktor and displaying dataTo access an HTTP(S) endpoint, we must start by creating a Ktor HttpClient instance. To create a client, we must provide an engine. The code to create a client with the CIO engine looks like this:val client = HttpClient(CIO)The preceding code is quite self-explanatory and produces a client that we can use to make network requests.In Android, network requests cannot be made from the main thread. This makes sense because waiting for a network request to resolve is an expensive operation, and executing it from the main thread would make an app non-responsive.Ktor solves this problemby using coroutines. This means that network calls using a Ktor client must either be in a suspend function or within a coroutine. For example, to make a call to the https://api.thecatapi.com/v1/images/search endpoint, we can use the following code:suspend fun searchImages(limit: Int, size: String):String = client.get( https://api.thecatapi.com/v1/images/search ) { url { parameter("limit", limit) } }.body()There are a few things to note here. First, you will notice that the searchImages function is a suspend function. This is required to make sure we don’t block the main thread when making a network call. Next, you will notice we call the get function of the client. This performs a GET operation. The get function has several overloads. The one we used here takes two arguments: a URL string and a lambda.The lambda we pass to the get function lets us configure the request. In our case, we use a url block to add a parameter to the request. There are different ways in which we can transfer data to the API. Adding parameters by calling parameter, as we did here, is one such way. It allows us to define values that have been added to the query of our request URL (the optional part of a URL that comes after the question mark). The parameter function takes a key and a value. The key is a string, and the value can be any value. Under the hood, a null value will be ignored, and toString() will be called on any other value before it is added to the query string. Any non-null value passed to parameter will be URL-encoded for us. In our case, we added a limit to the query string.Ktor also provides functions for all other HTTP operations, including post, put, patch, and delete. These are all convenient extension functions that can be used on top of request, which allows you to set the request method explicitly. By providing a lambda to these functions, we can configure the request URL, method, headers, and body.Going back to our example, our final call is to body. This function returns the server response and returns a value of a generic type. To keep things simple at this stage, we accepted the response as a string. We did this by declaring that the return type of searchImage be a string and relying on Kotlin’s ability to infer the type for body.So, where should we implement the Ktor code? In both clean architecture and Google’s architecture (note that the two are not the same), data is provided by repositories. Repositories, in turn, contain data sources. One such data source could be a network data source. This is where we will implement our network calls. Our ViewModel objects will then request data from repositories via use case classes.Important noteIn the caseof Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM), ViewModel is an abstraction of the view that exposes properties and commands.For our implementation, we will simplify the process by instantiating the Ktor client and making the get call in the Activity class. This is not a good practice. Do not do this in a production app. It does not scale well and is very difficult to test. Instead, adopt an architecture that decouples your views from your business logic and data.If you want to learn more about Android and its functions, then How to Build Android Applications with Kotlin is the book for you!🚀Build real-world Android apps with Kotlin and the Jetpack Compose UI framework🧵Leverage the latest libraries to accelerate your Android development✨Overcome development challenges with tips and tricks from experienced Android professionalsHow to Build Android Applications with KotlinPre-order now at $49.99!👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this new format of MobilePro.P.S.: If you have any suggestions or feedback, help us improve by sharing your thoughts. Click on the survey below.Take the Survey!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #193: ChatGPT’s app OS, React’s foundation, Apple’s foundation models,and more…Hi ,Welcome to another week of MobilePro; this is edition no. 193.Move over, Android and iOS. The new app OS is here. OpenAI’s Sam Altman revealed on Monday that he wants ChatGPT to be the place to use apps in the future. At OpenAI’s Developer Day, he announced a new SDK that lets third-party apps live inside ChatGPT. Think of it like this: instead of jumping between different apps on your phone, you could open ChatGPT and say, “Book me a flight to Paris,” and an integrated app like Expedia handles the UI, the search, and the checkout, all of this within the chat! You could then, without switching your app, ask Booking.com to show you hotels to stay at in Paris, and get your booking done there itself. And then, a Spotify playlist for your short trip to Paris? Sure, why not?What’s fascinating here is the shift from AI as a tool to AI as an operating system. For an app developer like you, that’s both exciting and a little wild. You can tap into ChatGPT’s multimodal stack and create context-aware apps that users interact with conversationally, not through traditional navigation.But here’s the thing: This isn’t the first time OpenAI has taken a shot at this idea. Remember when two years ago, it launched custom GPTs, where you could essentially build-your-own widgets and tweak and publish them to the GPT Store. That concept never really caught fire as the widgets felt limited, siloed, and not deeply integrated with the user experience. Altman’s betting that this time it’ll be different. Will it though? How many of you who experimented with the custom widgets last time around are likely to try the new Apps SDK now? Whether this turns ChatGPT into a mini-app ecosystem or a full-blown operating layer remains to be seen, but it’s clear OpenAI wants you to think conversationally, not just visually, when developing your apps.That’s not all the news this week. Let’s dive in.🚀 OpenAI turns ChatGPT into an app platform: Sam Altman wants ChatGPT to be your new app OS, with third-party apps like Expedia and Spotify living right inside the chat.🔒 Apple’s Foundation Models go on-device: AI gets local with Apple’s new framework, running private and powerful right on your iPhone’s Neural Engine.📲 Android gets its own Handoff: Task Continuity will let you jump between devices like magic, Android 16 is gunning for Apple’s ecosystem edge.🏛️ React gets its own foundation: Meta hands React to a new Linux Foundation home, backed by $3M and an all-star board, open-source just grew up.💻 Google’s Jules hits the command line: Google’s coding agent now runs in terminal and hooks into Slack and GitHub, devs call it smart, but scattered.Stick around for this week’s Developer Tip to learn how to avoid excessive wake locks and improving battery efficiency in your Android apps andtheDid You Know? section to learn how Apple’s iOS 18.6 update reduced the Epic Games Store iOS install flow from 15 steps to 6.Let’s dive in!📱 What's Happening in Mobile Development?If there’s any major news in the world of mobile app dev in the last week, MobilePro has you covered.iOSApple’s Foundation Models framework unlocks new app experiences powered by Apple Intelligence: Apple’s new Foundation Models framework brings intelligence straight to the iPhone’s Neural Engine, no cloud, no GPU, just on-device sorcery. Developers are impressed by its power efficiency and privacy-first design, though some users question its smarts, joking it still fumbles basic facts. Others say that’s the trade-off for Apple’s controlled, transparent AI approach that doesn’t send your data skyward.Apple Squashes Critical FontParser Bug in iOS 26.0.1 Update: Apple quietly shipped iOS 26.0.1 and iPadOS 26.0.1, patching a nasty FontParser bug that could crash apps or corrupt memory when handling malicious fonts. It’s a small update, but one that plugs a serious hole—classic Apple security magic happening behind the scenes.iOS 26.1 to iOS 26.4 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone: Apple’s next wave of updates, iOS 26.1 through 26.4, packs serious upgrades that push the iPhone closer to its futuristic vision. The spotlight features include a Digital Passport for TSA check-ins, end-to-end encrypted RCS chats with message editing and unsending, and a personalized Siri that actually knows your context. Add to that Weather via Satellite for off-grid forecasts and a fresh batch of emoji (yes, Bigfoot finally makes the cut), and you’ve got a lineup that turns everyday iPhone use into something a little more magical.AndroidAmper Update – Compose Hot Reload and UX Improvements: JetBrains’ latest Amper update brings long-awaited hot reload and smoother project setup, positioning it as a fresh alternative to Gradle. Developers are excited but divided. Many cheer the simplicity, while others worry about tool fragmentation and hope it pushes Gradle to evolve.Android's answer to Apple's Handoff is coming, and here's how it’ll work: Google is building its own version of Apple’s Handoff for Android, dubbed Task Continuity, to let users seamlessly switch apps and tasks between devices. The feature, spotted in Android 16 code, will power Google’s push to bring Android to PCs, closing the gap with Apple’s tightly integrated ecosystem and setting the stage for Android 17’s launch.Cross-platformFlutter 3.35.5 is out: Flutter pushed out version 3.35.5, bundling two small but targeted fixes. It’s a low-key release, but one that smooths out rough edges under the hood—classic Flutter polish, quietly keeping apps humming.Introducing the React Foundation: React just leveled up its open-source game — Meta’s handing the keys to a brand-new React Foundation under the Linux Foundation. With a $3M, five-year boost from Meta and a powerhouse board featuring Amazon, Microsoft, and Vercel, React’s future is shifting to community-driven governance. Same React magic, now with more voices at the table.Artificial Intelligence (AI)Google’s coding agent Jules now works in the command line: Google has rolled out Jules Tools, a command-line upgrade for its AI coding agent, plus a new API for Slack and GitHub integration. But on Reddit, developers aren’t sold. Many slammed Google’s scattered AI lineup and slow pace, calling for a more unified approach.For a deeper dive into avoiding excessive wake locks and improving battery efficiency in your Android apps, check out the detailed guide here.In case you have any tips to share with your fellow mobile developers, do reply to this mail and we’d be glad to feature you in a future edition of MobilePro.💭 What is the Mobile Community Talking About?What are mobile app developers discussing? Do you have any concerns, advice, or tutorials to share?MobileProbrings them to you all in one place.Live Activities reimagined as visual micro-storytelling: If you’re already using Live Activities, think of them less as widgets and more as visual micro-stories that evolve with user context. The piece dives into when they truly shine and how to keep them meaningful through smart hierarchy, smooth transitions, and avoiding “always-on” fatigue that turns delight into distraction.iOS devs debating Liquid Glass adoption: are they really on board?: A lively Reddit thread shows the community is split; some devs whisper excitement over the fresh design, others slam it for readability, performance hits, and visual discomfort, especially in dark mode. It’s become a lightning rod for deeper questions about how far designers should push aesthetics on mobile UI.Google tests “true” edge-to-edge layout in Chrome Canary: In a Reddit post, users noticed Chrome Canary is experimenting with full edge-to-edge rendering where content flows behind both the navigation and status bars, though the implementation is shaky and buggy so far.Android developer verification clarified: your top questions answered: Android’s new developer identity rules aim to protect users without killing sideloading or day-to-day dev workflows, and Google reassures that Android Studio builds, testing, and debugging remain unaffected.Derived Data mistakes every iOS dev should avoid: Antoine van der Lee breaks down five common missteps: misunderstanding Derived Data’s purpose, manually hunting for its folder, recklessly deleting everything, ignoring build-time insights, and failing to inspect build output for hidden inefficiencies.App monetization strategies: how to pick the right mix for your app: This article walks through real-world trade-offs, like ad fatigue vs. subscription churn, and shows that layering multiple revenue streams, whether subscriptions, ads, freemium upgrades, or sponsored content, often yields the best balance for long-term growth.Flutter team seeks your feedback to improve accessibility: With accessibility standards like EAA and WCAG becoming more critical, Flutter wants to help developers catch issues earlier instead of fixing them right before release. The team is asking for input on pain points, success stories, and tools that could make accessibility debugging more proactive and integrated into everyday development.📚️ Latest in Mobile Development from PacktMobilePro presents the latest titles from Packt that ought to be useful for mobile developers.Available now in Early access, Ahmad Sahar's book is perfect for beginners with minimal coding experience who want to enter the world of Swift programming and iOS app development.🏗️Have fun building your first iOS app and start your iOS programming career🤖 Learn to integrate Apple Intelligence and the sleek new Liquid Glass UI for modern app experiences📚 Establish a solid foundation with UIKit, testing, and deployment best practicesiOS 26 Programming for BeginnersLimited-time offer: 30% off for 72 hours! Use the code IOS26 at checkoutPre-order now at $44.99 $31.49! Now available on Early Access too!Thanks to the EU’s Digital Markets Act, Apple’s iOS 18.6 update reduced the Epic Games Store iOS install flow from 15 steps to 6, slashing the user drop-off rate from ~65% to ~25%. Even so, Epic argues Apple still flouts DMA rules via fees and restrictive approval practices and continues to call out Google’s install hurdles too.Sourced from Developer Tech.👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this edition of MobilePro. If you have any suggestions and feedback, or would just like to say hi to us, please write to us. Just respond to this email!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #192: A Tech Team's Guide to Smart Collaboration StrategiesHi ,Welcome to the 192nd edition of MobilePro!Too many reviews feel like déjà vu: endless discussions, scattered feedback, and no clear decisions. Hours get wasted, momentum stalls, and teams are left wondering what’s next.This article flips that script. With the right prep and structure, reviews can turn into powerful collaboration sessions that align stakeholders, surface the best ideas, and drive projects forward. And here’s the kicker—it’s not just for design teams. Product managers, engineers, marketers—any team that runs reviews or feedback sessions can benefit from these strategies.In this issue, we will discover how to:Frame a clear project narrative everyone understandsPrep stakeholders so feedback is sharp and usefulRun reviews that stay focused and deliver real decisionsCapture outcomes so nothing gets lost in the shuffleThis is an excerpt from the bookDesign Beyond Limits with Figma written by Šimon Jůn.Before we jump in though, let's take a quick look at last week's highlights:🤖 Claude is now generally available in Xcode🍏 iOS 26 problems: User complaints include lag and clunky app redesigns🦾 OpenAI Releases GPT-5-Codex Optimized for Complex Code Refactoring and Code Reviews🚀 Swift 6.2 ReleasedKnow The AuthorŠimon Jůn is a design-led product leader and Chief Operating Officer at Dotidot, based in Prague, Czechia. Beginning his career as a product designer, he rose to the role of Chief Product Officer and now shapes company strategy as COO—giving him a unique perspective that spans handson design work and executive decision-making.As the official Czech host of Friends of Figma, Šimon organizes community events and talks that foster open knowledge sharing. Through his workshops and online training programs, he has helped hundreds of teams streamline their Figma workflows and bridge the gap between designers and developers.🤝 Running collaborative reviews with stakeholdersIn many companies, the traditional design review process is fundamentally broken. You know the drill: spend hours preparing a presentation, walk through designs, get bombarded with conflicting feedback, then spend days trying to make sense of scattered comments across email, Slack, and Figma. If you don’t know this routine, consider yourself lucky and thank your stakeholders for it, because this scenario is more common than you might think.What’s the problem?Most design reviews fail because they lack structure and clear objectives. Stakeholders arrive unprepared, discussions go in circles, and decisions get postponed. Without proper facilitation, reviews become showcase events where designers present work and stakeholders provide scattered, often conflicting feedback. This approach wastes everyone’s time and rarely leads to actionable outcomes.Another common issue is the “design by committee” trap, where stakeholders try to redesign everything during the review. This happens when stakeholders don’t understand the design rationale or haven’t beeninvolved enough in the process leading up to the review.How to fix itThe solution really depends on your internal workflows, but here are some effective strategies for different organizations.Establish a clear project narrativeBefore you can have productive design reviews, everyone needs to be on the same starting line. Every project should have a clear narrative that answers the fundamental questions: Why are we doing this? What problem are we solving? Who are we solving it for? What does success look like?This isn’t just about having a project brief sitting in a shared folder somewhere. It’s about actively ensuring every stakeholder understands and agrees on the project’s core purpose. So many review sessions derail because stakeholders have different assumptions about the project goals or user needs.Create a simple one-page project narrative that includes the following:The problem: What specific user or business challenge are we addressing?The opportunity: Why is solving this problem important right now?Success metrics: How will we know if our solution works?Constraints: What limitations do we need to work within?Share this narrative before your first review session and reference it throughout the project. When feedback discussions go off track, you can always return to this foundation: “Let’s check whether this suggestionaligns with our core objective of [insert problem statement].”Review preparationStakeholders are busy people, and don’t assume they’re at the same level of understanding about design processes or project phases as you are. They’re probably not, and you need to guide them. You can make small changes to your review process to be more effective.Make a proper calendar eventMany times, you may receive calendar events with just a title and zero description. This sets everyone up for failure. Here’s what should be included:Context setting: Briefly remind stakeholders of the project goals, target users, and any constraints you’re working within. Even if they were part of earlier conversations, this refresher ensures everyone starts from the same foundation. These details are crucial. If you need any preparation or expect clear outcomes from the meeting, put it in the calendar invite.Review objectives: Clearly state what you want to achieve in this session. Are you validating the overall direction, gathering feedback on specific interactions, or making final decisions before development? Different objectives require different types of feedback.Specific questions: Instead of asking "What do you think?" provide targeted questions such as the following:- Does this solution address the main user pain point we identified?- Are there any business constraints we haven’t considered?- How does this align with our technical capabilities?- Do you agree with the proposed direction?Review session structureStart every review with a five-minute agenda overview. This might seem obvious, but it sets expectations and keeps the conversation focused.Ask everyone whether they completed their preparation from the event description. If not, don’t be afraid to postpone the meeting with an honest explanation:"To be productive, we need to have the same starting point. That starting point is the preparation outlined in the event description. If you didn’t have time to review it, that’s completely understandable. I know more important things come up. But in this case, it doesn’t make sense for us to proceed. It would be a waste of time for those who did prepare. What date works best to reschedule?"If everyone is ready, the meeting can start. Here’s an agenda template, but remember to adapt it to your situation:Design walk-through (15-20 minutes): Present the work systematically, explaining your thinking as you go. Don’t just show the final designs; walk through your decision-making process.Targeted feedback (20-30 minutes): Work through your prepared questions systematically. Use techniques such as dot voting for prioritization when you have multiple options to evaluate.Action items and next steps (5-10 minutes): Clearly document decisions made, action items assigned, and the timeline for next steps.Managing the conversationFor larger stakeholder groups, appoint a dedicated facilitator. For larger groups or senior stakeholders, it’s beneficial to have a different facilitator than the presenting designer. While it’s often the same person, this isn’t ideal because the facilitator’s role often involves saying “stop,” and it’s difficult to switch between a neutral role (facilitator) and an opinionated role (designer).TipIf you don’t have the option to have two separate people in the meeting (facilitator and designer), try setting up a safe word. At Dotidot, we use “strawberry.” Anyone can use it, and when they do, the discussion stops and we return to the original topic. It doesn’t matter if a product manager says it in the middle of the CEO talking. That’s the rule, and everyone respects it. This approach works better in smaller, more open companies than in large corporations, in my opinion, but it’s an interesting strategy worth considering for the right team culture.The facilitator keeps the conversation on track and ensures everyone has a chance to contribute. When working with senior stakeholders, this role becomes even more critical because power dynamics can prevent honest feedback.As a designer, use the “yes, and” approach when stakeholders suggest changes. Instead of immediately explaining why something won’t work, acknowledge their concern and build on it. Take the following example:Yes, I understand the concern about the checkout flow being too long, and let me show you how we addressed that with the progress indicator and by reducing form fields.Scripts for unclear feedbackWhen stakeholdersgive vague feedback such as “make it pop more” or “it doesn’t feel right,” use the “help me understand” script to turn subjective opinions into actionable design direction:Help me understand what [repeat their words] means for our users trying to [complete specific task]. Are you thinking about [offer 2-3 specific options such as visual hierarchy, color contrast, call-to-action prominence, etc.]?Take the following example:Stakeholder: This page needs more energyResponse: Help me understand what ‘more energy’ means for users trying to find our pricing information. Are you thinking about brighter colors, larger typography, or more prominent call-to-action buttons?Stakeholder: The design feels offResponse: Help me understand what feels off for users trying to complete their purchase. Are you thinking about the layout structure, visual hierarchy, or the flow between steps?This approach validates their concern while gathering specific, actionable information you can actually design with.Documenting decisionsEvery meeting needs to have all decisions documented in one place and shared with everyone. You can make this step super easy with automated notetaking tools such as Loom, Fathom, Otter.ai, or Zoom’s built-in transcription that can automatically join meetings when you connect your calendar.TipEven if the meeting is offline, I usually start a Google Meet with myself and add a Loom recording bot. The meeting will automatically create a recording with a clear transcript that you can input into ChatGPT or Claude to extract action steps, decisions, tasks, deadlines, and so on from the meeting in seconds. This allows you to focus solely on the presentation rather than note-taking.Follow-up actionsSend a review summary within 24 hours that includes the following:Key decisions madeAction items with owners and deadlinesUpdated timeline if changes affect the scheduleLink to the updated Figma file with any changes made during the sessionThis follow-up email or Slack message serves as a record and ensures everyone remembers what was agreed upon.If you want to explore more such tips and tricks, then Design Beyond Limits for Figma is for you.🚀Level up into a highly sought-after designer through expert techniques and battle-tested workflows🧵Learn faster with a hands-on guide built around practical, recipe-based approach✨Put Al to work in Figma with workflows that speed up content, assets, and cleanup while saving hoursDesign Beyond Limits with FigmaBuy now at $44.99!👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this new format of MobilePro.P.S.: If you have any suggestions or feedback, help us improve by sharing your thoughts. Click on the survey below.Take the Survey!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #191: Swift 6.2, Claude in Xcode 26, Android 16 QPR2 Beta 2, and more…Hi ,Welcome to another week of MobilePro; this is edition no. 191.A couple weeks ago, Apple released iOS 26. As with so many other, I did not hesitate in quickly getting hold of the new update. I love most of the changes. Liquid Glass does look cool, love the little jelly shake when you unlock your phone or shift tabs in Calls. Safari Browser has a leaner look too, where you can now parse more information as the address bar and other extras take lesser space at the bottom. However, it’s not all easy-going.Of course, I have seen my phone battery diminish quicker. Now, this is commonplace for iPhones whenever a major update is out, and it generally does settle down soon enough. That’s what Apple has said this time around as well, that your phone will take some time adjusting to the changes across the device. So I say, let’s have a little patience and hopefully the battery will be back to what it was. It’s not all doom and gloom.Anyway, it does seem that if you’re displeased with iOS 26, there’s no way back anymore. Apple has stopped the validation of iOS 18.6.2, which must have been your iPhone’s status before updating to iOS 26. This means that if you were planning to downgrade from iOS 26 to iOS 18.6.2, you can no longer do that. Again, this isn’t a new practice. Apple does this whenever they release a new, major update, like iOS 26 is. Time to get yourself familiar with Liquid Glass then, yes?That’s not all the news this week. Let’s dive in.⚡ Swift 6.2 released: Easier concurrency, safer low-level coding, faster builds, and smoother workflows for developers😵‍💫 iOS 26 user backlash: Many report eye strain, vertigo, and visual discomfort from the new Liquid Glass UI🔐 Apple stops signing iOS 18.6.2: Downgrades from iOS 26 are now blocked — once you upgrade, you can’t roll back🚫 Android crackdown: From 2026, Google will require developer identity verification even for sideloaded apps, blocking unverified installs globally by 2027🤖 Android 16 QPR2 Beta 2: Platform-stable with developer verification, SMS-OTP protection, custom icons, and performance boosts🖥️ Claude in Xcode 26: Natural-language coding assistant for debugging, docs, and SwiftUI previews directly in Xcode📝 GPT-5 Codex: AI optimized for complex code refactoring and large-scale reviewsStick around for this week’s Developer Tip to learn how to smartly work with GitHub Copilot andtheDid You Know? section to learn about Anthropic’s settlement of a class-action lawsuit.Let’s dive in!Cloud Ransomware Tabletop: Unpacking an Attack from Detection to RecoveryCloud ransomware isn't a matter of if, but when. Are you truly ready?Watch our immersive fireside chat on October 1st @ 9 AM PDT as we unpack a fictional, yet alarmingly realistic, cloud ransomware attack on Horizon Retail.Save Your Spot📱 What's Happening in Mobile Development?If there’s any major news in the world of mobile app dev in the last week, MobilePro has you covered.iOS & SwiftSwift 6.2 is out: Swift 6.2 is here, bringing big upgrades for productivity and safety. It makes concurrency easier with less boilerplate, adds safer low-level tools like InlineArray and Span, and streamlines workflows with VS Code support, faster builds, and smarter debugging. In short, it’s a release that makes writing Swift code smoother, faster, and more reliable.iOS/iPadOS 26.1 release: iOS/iPadOS 26.1 beta focuses on fixes and small updates: HealthKit now has a single blood pressure toggle, SwiftUI gains @Animatable on older OS versions, and NearbyInteraction supports more UWB parameters. It also resolves issues with Background Assets, Game Controller timestamps, and HealthKit blood pressure saves, though some Siri (Portuguese), SwiftUI, and NearbyInteraction bugs remain.Claude is now generally available in Xcode: Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4 is now generally available inside Xcode 26, letting developers use natural-language tools to debug, refactor, generate docs, preview SwiftUI, and more, all from within their project.AndroidRelease of Android 16 QPR2 Beta 2: Android 16 QPR2 Beta 2 is now platform-stable, the APIs are locked, with new features like developer verification, SMS-OTP protection, custom icon shapes, better garbage collection, and more battery-/performance-friendly improvements.Jetpack Compose 1.9.1 Lands: Jetpack Compose just hit stable with version 1.9.1, bringing improvements in shadows, 2D scrolling APIs, and more efficient list performance. Material3 is inching forward too, now in release-candidate with updates, while the alpha builds preview even newer tweaks.Android 16 GSI binaries released: The GSI (Generic System Image) release gives devs early access to Android 16’s code for testing and compatibility checks on supported devices, plus instructions and caveats about flashing, known issues, and hardware requirements.As Android developer verification gets ready to go, here's a new reason to be worried: Google is making developer identity verification mandatory even for apps installed outside the Play Store, meaning unverified apps may be blocked on devices without an active internet connection. The rollout starts in phases from September 2026 (in select regions) and will expand globally by 2027.Artificial Intelligence (AI)OpenAI Releases GPT-5-Codex Optimized for Complex Code Refactoring and Code Reviews: OpenAI has unleashed GPT-5-Codex, a version of GPT-5 fine-tuned for heavy-duty dev work like big code refactors and code reviews. It adapts how much reasoning power it uses to the complexity of a task, supports both interactive tweaks and long-running automation, and shows much higher accuracy in large, multi-file changes.Replit Introduces Agent 3 for Extended Autonomous Coding and Automation: Replit just dropped Agent 3, a much more autonomous coding agent that can keep working for up to ~200 minutes, self-test and debug its own code, and even spawn sub-agents for tasks like Slack or email integrations. It promises up to three times faster results at a tenth of the cost compared to Replit’s older models—kind of a shift toward agents that handle more of the dev workflow on their own.Apple’s new Liquid Glass UI makes native apps shine, but Flutter apps don’t get it out of the box. Why? Flutter’s Impeller engine paints its own layer — meaning your app could feel outdated next to iOS. Click here to know how to replicate the effect (and stay ahead).In case you have any tips to share with your fellow mobile developers, do reply to this mail and we’d be glad to feature you in a future edition of MobilePro.💭 What is the Mobile Community Talking About?What are mobile app developers discussing? Do you have any concerns, advice, or tutorials to share?MobileProbrings them to you all in one place.Flutter MVVM + Repository architecture slashes feature time from weeks to days: Rezvani’s team at TechCorp refactored their app’s architecture, cleanly separating Views, ViewModels, Repositories, and Services, and cut feature delivery from 6-8 weeks to just 5-7 days; they also improved code quality with tests, reduced duplication, and sped up build/startup times dramatically.Error monitoring blind spots: how to reveal and fix unseen performance issues: Many apps suffer from performance issues that escape visibility because their error monitoring tools miss certain contexts, like background tasks, non-blocking async flows, or device-specific failures. This article outlines steps to enhance observability: capturing stack traces in all thread types, using synthetic monitoring, adding logging in edge cases, and proactively investigating user feedback to find what standard tools don’t catch.Visual Studio adds prompts, resources & sampling to MCP for smarter Copilot context: Visual Studio now supports new MCP (Model Context Protocol) features: prompts, resources, and sampling, which let Copilot pull in project-specific context like work items, design specs, and app schemas directly within the IDE. These additions enable more customized, dynamic interactions (via prompt/templates), bring in external context via resources, and allow MCP servers to perform nested LLM calls with sampling, making Copilot assistance more intelligent and tightly coupled to your dev stack.📚️ Latest in Mobile Development from PacktMobilePro presents the latest titles from Packt that ought to be useful for mobile developers.A perfect book for UX and UI designers who already have a basic understanding of Figma and want to advance beyond the fundamentals.🏗️Level up into a highly sought-after designer through expert techniques and battle-tested workflows📚Learn faster with a hands-on guide built around practical, recipe-based approach.🤖 Put Al to work in Figma with workflows that speed up content, assets, and cleanup while saving hoursDesign Beyond Limits with FigmaBuy now at $44.99!GitHub has been named a Leader in Gartner’s 2025 Magic Quadrant for AI Code Assistants for the second consecutive year, ranking highest in both “ability to execute” and “completeness of vision”.Sourced from GitHub.👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this edition of MobilePro. If you have any suggestions and feedback, or would just like to say hi to us, please write to us. Just respond to this email!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}