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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}}

Go behind the scenes of how Eric Narro turned his Taipy expertise into a published Packt book.👋 Hello ,Welcome to BIPro #117 - Behind the Book, Part 2: Eric Narro’s Journey from Idea to PublicationThis week, we take you inside the creative process of Eric Narro, author of Getting Started with Taipy,the definitive guide to building production-ready Python applications. In Part 2 of our Behind the Book series, Eric shares what it was like to turn his expertise into a full-length Packt publication, from his first LinkedIn message with our team to collaborating with the Taipy developers and shaping his experience into a book that empowers Python builders worldwide.Knowledge Partner Spotlight: OutskillAt Packt, we’ve partnered with Outskill to help readers gain practical exposure to AI tools through free workshops, complementing the deeper, hands-on, expert-led experiences offered through Packt Virtual Conferences.If you're interested in enhancing your AI skills, Outskill’s LIVE 2-Day AI Mastermind offers a 16-hour training on AI tools, automations, and agent-building. This weekend’s sessions (Saturday and Sunday, 10 AM–7 PM EST) are available at no cost as part of their Black Friday Sale, providing a great opportunity to elevate your knowledge in just two days.Learn AI tools, agents & automations in just 16 hoursJoin now, limited free seats available!Cheers,Merlyn ShelleyGrowth Lead, PacktSponsored:🔸82% of data breaches happen in the cloud. Join Rubrik’s Cloud Resilience Summit to learn how to recover faster and keep your business running strong. [Save Your Spot]🔸Build your next app on HubSpot’s all-new Developer Platform,the flexible, AI-ready foundation to create, extend, and scale your integrations with confidence. [Start Building Today]Subscribe|Submit a tip|Advertise with UsMy Experience Writing a Book with Packt by Eric NarroI wrote a book with Packt, it’s called “Getting Started with Taipy”. Taipy is a Python library that lets you create data applications. I’ve writtenlots of articles about it.I recently wrote abouthow I got to write a book with Packt. In this article, I’ll write about the process of writing it. I’ll describe the steps involved, but I’ll also share what I experienced during the writing process. Each section of this article represents one part of the process, although they all overlapped to some extent. I’ll also discuss everything I’ve gained from this experience.How I Got the OfferIt all started on June 13th, 2024. Pratik, someone from Packt, contacted me on LinkedIn. Packt was developing a book about Taipy, and they were looking for an author with expertise in the area.I was able to recover the LinkedIn messages and read them again. This first contact was followed by two online meetings, the latest one on June 25th.What I remember from this period of time is having mixed feelings. I first thought it could be a scam. I checked about other people having an experience writing for Packt, I checked about the people that contacted me, and their contacts as well; it all looked legit (and ultimately, it sure was!) I remember being excited, and also a bit worried: if I agreed to continue this, would I be able to actually write the book?What I remember from this period is having mixed feelings. At first, I thought it could be a scam. I checked whether other people had written for Packt, looked into the people who contacted me, and even checked their contacts — everything looked legit (and ultimately, it sure was!). I remember being excited but also a bit worried: if I agreed to continue, would I actually be able to write the book?When you get such an offer, the process doesn’t start right away, although it doesn’t take long to get started either! There’s a round of questions and explanations. The team at Packt presented their workflow. This is also when Nilesh joined in! Nilesh was on board from the beginning until the end of the project, and it was fantastic working with him all along!I also asked a few questions. The one that intrigued me most was:was this book commissioned by the Taipy team?I didn’t know if that was something Packt did. It turned out that the book wasn’t a Taipy initiative; Packt has a current awareness team that tracks trends. They detected growing interest around Taipy and identified a need for a book in the library.Even though the book wasn’t initiated by the Taipy team, I wanted to reach out to them to present the project. I knew them a little from being a project contributor, and I thought informing them was the least I could do. I also wanted to make sure there were no trademark or other legal issues, even though Packt has a dedicated legal team to ensure its books comply with the law. I also asked if they’d be willing to answer my questions when they arose and to review the chapters. They agreed, and I can’t thank them enough for that! Florian, Alexandre, and Rym were my main contacts at Taipy: thanks to each of them individually as well!While these preliminary steps might seem unimportant at first glance, they were moments of extreme excitement, maybe because this was my first book! All these conversations lasted for about a month, but they also overlapped with the process of writing the outline, which I’ll talk about next.The OutlineWriting an outline is the first part of the process. This is something you start as soon as you sign the book’s contract (which is done electronically and is a process without much interest).Writing the outline, along with some other documents such as the product description, was definitely the part I liked the least about the process! But it needs to be done.This process took about two weeks, with several exchanges with the team at Packt. In the outline, you have to describe the main parts of the book and what each chapter will cover. This is a difficult task (at least for a first-timer — I think I’d do a better job if I had to go through this process again). What’s hard about this exercise is calibrating the real size of each chapter.For example, Chapter 2 is about Taipy’s visual elements. The subject is huge, and it ended up being a mega-chapter that covers lots of concepts. Conceptually, it makes sense to have a dedicated chapter for this, but I could have imagined a way to split it into two. However, Chapters 3, 4, and 5 cover distinct aspects of Scenario Management (a Taipy-related concept) and ended up having a proper size. Doing a well-calibrated outline is hard!Another challenge in creating the outline was imagining some of the examples I’d include in the book. Part 2 of the book is a set of tutorials that demonstrate how to create Taipy applications close to real enterprise use cases. I wanted this set of examples to show different areas of Taipy (or how to use Taipy in different ways) and also demonstrate how it can be applied in different industries, to solve problems of various types (optimization, reporting, forecasting, LLM apps, and so on). This “imagination work” takes time!Ultimately, I had to change some of the applications I had in mind. For example, I initially wanted to create an app that uses satellite images to monitor farmland. In my head, this was great… until I thought:Which particular piece of land am I going to use?Because, you know… all those farmlands are private properties, and I didn’t want any problems (nor did I want to ask for permission). I changed the app to use public parks in Paris, which was a good compromise. This approach had pros and cons: on one hand, I had more data about the parks that I could display in the app; on the other, the size of the parks and the type of land made the app less useful. But overall, I found it to be a good compromise.Writing the first draft of the outline was quick, but finalizing it tookquite some time— about two months. Of course, that doesn’t mean I spent two months writing nonstop; it was mostly small improvements and changes following reviews by different stakeholders. The last messages I can find in my emails regarding the outline date are from late August. By that point, I was already writing the book!Speaking of writing the book, let’s see how that went!The Writing ProcessThe writing process is the longest part. For each chapter, the process includes:Writing the chapter…It was reviewed by a person at TaipyIt was then reviewed for editingIt was then reviewed by technical reviewers (not affiliated with Taipy)It was then reviewed for copy editingIt underwent a final revision by the authorIf you consider that “writing the chapter” also involved reviewing what I had just written — several times — this means I had to re-read each chapter ten times or more. And honestly, reviewing a text — whatever text it may be — so many times is emotionally difficult. But I did it!Let’s go back to the beginning of writing a chapter. The process starts with creating drafts and sketching the concepts I’ll write about. But if you think that actual writing is what takes the most time… you’re not even close to the truth. Writing takes some time, yes, but there’swaymore to it!Since the book is about a Python library (Taipy) that lets you create data applications, almost every chapter includes an app coded specifically for it. This means that for most chapters, I had to build a demonstration app, and coding apps takes time!When starting a chapter, I’d have to decide exactly what application I was going to code. This included finding a dataset that made sense for the app and that had a license I could use in the book. Just imagining all this was already a time-consuming process!The next step was usually creating the application while writing the key parts of the process as it was being built. This took a lot of time, especially for Chapters 7 to 14. The reason is that, while Taipy helps you create apps quickly, what actually takes time is coding all the other parts (the non-Taipy parts, if you will, such as machine learning pipelines or geographic information programs).Continue reading the full article on our Medium handle.See you next time!*{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} @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}}