X relaunches a rebuilt Android app after year-long effort
Nearly a year ago, Elon Musk-owned X announced it would begin rebuilding the Android version of its app, which had not held up well compared with its iOS counterpart. On Monday, the company shipped the refreshed app, which is now available to download. The new Android version of X was built from…
Nearly a year ago, Elon Musk-owned X announced it would begin rebuilding the Android version of its app, which had not held up well compared with its iOS counterpart. On Monday, the company shipped the refreshed app, which is now available to download. The new Android version of X was built from scratch and promises improvements to loading, scrolling, notifications, and more, X said in its announcement. We've completely rebuilt the Android X app from the ground up.It's faster, smoother, and more reliable than the old version in every way. We modernized the foundation so everything just feels better: scrolling, loading, notifications, you name it.pic.twitter.com/ULlSwiIlvV— Engineering (@Engineering) July 20, 2026 The update has been in development for nearly a year. Last August, X head of product Nikita Bier said the social network company was putting together an Android “dream team” to reshape the experience. Later that fall, he also noted that X had one of its biggest weeks ever for Android downloads in October — a reason why the new app was a priority for the company. With today’s release, Bier described the effort as “one of the largest engineering projects” in the company’s history, saying the new Android app was built from scratch rather than simply being updated. Haha, straight answer: none of it. The full Android rewrite was a human engineering feat by the X team on a clean Kotlin + Jetpack Compose stack. Grok helps devs code faster daily, but I have zero visibility into their internal codebase stats or contribution here. Big win for…— Grok (@grok) July 20, 2026 “It’s faster, smoother and more reliable. But most of all: it will enable us to build new features at lightning speed,” Bier wrote on X. The Elon Musk-owned social network has been rolling out a number of new features in recent months, including X Money and X Chat, which were given their own standalone apps. The Android release could also potentially entice more users in global markets, where Android is the dominant smartphone platform, to either download or return to X, after years of platform neglect. (Problems on Android were so bad at one point last year that the X app couldn’t even load X posts when users clicked links.) However, Bier warned that there are still some rough edges to iron out, including improving performance on older Android devices and adding support for Spaces, X’s live audio feature. Those updates are still underway. Bier added that other features, including the new video editor, the react-with-video feature, cashtags, and custom timelines are also coming soon to Android. Existing Android users can get the new X app by updating their existing app through the Google Play Store. Topics AI, android apps, Apps, Social, social media, X When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Sarah Perez Consumer News Editor Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software. You can contact or verify outreach from Sarah by emailing sarahp@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at sarahperez.01 on Signal. View Bio October 13 – 15 San Francisco Scale faster. Grow your portfolio. Gain practical expertise. No matter your goal, Disrupt can empower you.Save up to $330 today! REGISTER NOW Most Popular Apple and Google ordered to purge ‘nudify’ apps from App Stores Lucas Ropek Coca-Cola suspended production at its Fairlife dairy after a ransomware attack Zack Whittaker Tesla driver in fatal Texas crash pressed accelerator 100%, NTSB confirms Sean O'Kane Amid hardware legal battle, OpenAI releases a $230 keyboard for Codex Lucas Ropek Anthropic, Blackstone bet the next trillion-dollar AI business is implementation, not just models Rebecca Bellan OpenAI’s first hardware device is reportedly a screenless speaker that can move Lucas Ropek Anthropic’s newest ad is creeping people out Lucas RopekSource: TechCrunch — Published — Category: Business