News Digest: Kotlin Multiplatform Special

Daria Voronina

November has been a busy and eventful month with a lot of exciting news and many updates in the Kotlin Multiplatform ecosystem. Catch up on all the highlights in our digest.

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Kotlin Multiplatform is Stable and production-ready

Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) is an open-source technology built by JetBrains that allows developers to share code across platforms while retaining the benefits of native programming. KMP is now Stable and 100% ready for you to use in production. Read our blog post to learn about the evolution of the framework, how it can streamline your development process, and what educational resources are available for you to get the most out of the technology.

Explore KMP

Fleet with Kotlin Multiplatform tooling

The JetBrains team has launched a preview for Kotlin Multiplatform support in Fleet, which simplifies the development of multiplatform applications, adding to the already extensive Kotlin support in Fleet. Its features include:

• Simplicity: Run configurations for Android and/or iOS are generated automatically.
• Polyglot programming: You don’t have to switch to a different editor when working with native code in your multiplatform project.
• Cross-language Swift-Kotlin support: Fleet provides cross-language сode navigation, refactoring, and debugging.

Learn more in our Welcome Fleet with Kotlin Multiplatform Tooling blog post and try out all of the great features Fleet provides.

Get started

Amper – Improving your build tooling user experience 

Amper is a new experimental project configuration tool focused on usability, onboarding, and IDE support. To sum it up, here’s a brief overview of all there is to know about this tool so far:

• You can currently use Amper with Kotlin and Kotlin Multiplatform, though it also supports Java and Swift.
• Implemented as a Gradle plugin, Amper uses YAML for its project configuration format.
• You can try it out in JetBrains Fleet and IntelliJ IDEA.

For more details and examples, read our blog post about Amper and how it can improve your build tooling user experience.

Learn more about Amper

Kotlin 1.9.20 released

Kotlin 1.9.20 and 1.9.21 have now been released! The main highlights of the 1.9.20 release include:

• K2 is now in Beta for all supported targets.
• Kotlin Multiplatform is Stable.
• A new default hierarchy template is available for setting up multiplatform projects.
• The Gradle configuration cache is fully supported in Kotlin Multiplatform.
• The custom memory allocator is enabled by default in Kotlin/Native.
• The garbage collector in Kotlin/Native performs significantly faster.

For the complete list of changes, see What’s new in Kotlin 1.9.20. 

Kotlin 1.9.21, meanwhile, addresses a variety of issues, including regression problems, and introduces kapt compatibility with JDK21.

Try the latest version

Compose Multiplatform 1.5.10 – The perfect time to get started

Compose Multiplatform is a declarative UI framework built by JetBrains that allows developers to share their applications’ UIs across different platforms. The 1.5.10 release of Compose Multiplatform provides support for Kotlin 1.9.20 and offers the following features:

• Quicker and easier startup
• New Material 3 components in common code
• Enhanced TextFields on iOS
• Crossfade animation for UIKit interoperability
• Increased compilation speed
• Basic support for the K2 compiler
• Enhanced rendering performance on iOS
• A new documentation portal

For more details about 1.5.10, read our blog post. Compose Multiplatform 1.5.11 is now also available, providing compatibility with Kotlin 1.9.21 and several fixes to ensure a more stable and reliable framework.

Update to the latest version

Kotlin Multiplatform development roadmap for 2024

The JetBrains team is adding many awesome things to Kotlin Multiplatform to provide you with the best cross-platform development experience. Our plans for 2024 include:

• Direct Kotlin-to-Swift export
• Compose for iOS in Beta
• A single IDE experience with Fleet
• Improved KMP library publishing process

Delve into our updated roadmap to see what’s cooking.

Explore the roadmap

Livestream recordings

If you missed our educational livestreams, the recordings are now available to watch online. Enjoy the Kotlin Multiplatform Webinar November series to get insights directly from JetBrains experts!

• The State of Kotlin Multiplatform
• Getting Started With KMP: Build Apps for iOS and Android With Shared Logic and Native UIs
• Getting Started With KMP: Build Apps for iOS, Android, and Desktop in 100% Kotlin With Compose Multiplatform
• iOS Development With Kotlin Multiplatform: Tips and Tricks

Tackle Advent of Code 2023 with Kotlin and win prizes!

Advent of Code is a great way to discover new Kotlin features, enhance your problem-solving skills, and engage with a fantastic community. Dive into 25 days of coding challenges at adventofcode.com for some friendly competition, valuable learning experiences, and the chance to win exclusive Kotlin prizes!

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