X rebuilds its Android app from scratch

If you have been using X on an Android phone over the past few years, you already know the pain. Sluggish scrolling, broken links, missed notifications, and an overall clunky experience made the app feel like a neglected afterthought compared to its iOS sibling.

On Monday, X finally rolled out a completely rebuilt Android app. Developed from scratch over nearly a year, the refreshed app is now available to download from the Google Play Store.

Rebuilt from scratch by a dedicated dream team

This is not just another incremental update. Nikita Bier, head of product at X, described the rebuild as one of the largest engineering projects in the company's history.

The push started last August when Bier announced X was assembling an Android dream team to overhaul the product. The initiative gained urgency in the fall after X logged one of its biggest weeks ever for Android downloads in October.

Historically, the gap between platforms was embarrassingly wide. At its worst last year, the Android app frequently failed to load basic posts when users tapped on links. The new foundation promises much faster loading times, silky-smooth scrolling, and far more reliable push notifications.

Bier noted that beyond day-to-day speed, the modernized codebase will finally allow the team to ship new features at lightning speed. That flexibility is crucial as X continues expanding its ecosystem, following recent standalone app launches like X Money and X Chat.

The missing pieces and older phones

While the core framework is brand new, Bier acknowledged that the app still has rough edges to smooth out.

Performance optimizations for older Android handsets are still underway, so users on budget or aging hardware might not see the full benefits right away. Furthermore, live audio hosting via Spaces is not fully supported yet on Android, though Bier confirmed the engineering team is working on it.

Other features headed to Android soon include a built-in video editor, the react-with-video tool, cashtags, and custom timelines.

Why it matters

We think rebuilding Android from scratch is one of the smartest and most grounded moves X has made under its current leadership.

Tech companies often get trapped in an iOS-centric bubble, treating Android as a secondary chore. But in international markets where Android holds a massive market share, a broken app simply repels millions of potential active users. Fixing the foundation is table stakes if X seriously intends to become an all-in-one everyday platform.

The trade-off of a ground-up rewrite is the inevitable temporary loss of feature parity. Leaving out Spaces hosting and creative video tools hurts creators who rely on Android as their daily driver.

Even so, for anyone using an Android device, updating immediately is a no-brainer. Getting rid of phantom notification bugs and sluggish feeds is worth far more in daily use than waiting for niche creator tools to trickle in.