X ships a rebuilt Android app after year-long overhaul

Elon Musk-owned X shipped its refreshed Android app on Monday, nearly a year after announcing it would rebuild the platform’s long-neglected Android experience from scratch. X said the new version improves loading, scrolling, notifications, and more compared with the prior app, which had lagged behind its iOS counterpart.

The rebuild has been in development for close to a year. Last August, X head of product Nikita Bier said the company was assembling a dedicated Android team to reshape the app, and later that fall he noted X had one of its biggest weeks ever for Android downloads in October — a signal the company pointed to in prioritizing the project. Bier called the effort one of the largest engineering projects in X’s history, saying the app was built from scratch rather than incrementally updated. “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 release lands as X has rolled out several new features in recent months, including X Money and X Chat, both spun into standalone apps. A rebuilt Android app could also help X win back or attract users in global markets, where Android is the dominant smartphone platform, after years of platform neglect — problems that at one point last year kept the X app from even loading posts when users clicked links.

Bier warned some rough edges remain, including performance on older Android devices and support for Spaces, X’s live audio feature, both still in progress. He added that other features already on iOS — a new video editor, a react-with-video option, cashtags, and custom timelines — are also coming soon to Android. Existing Android users can get the rebuilt app by updating through the Google Play Store.

Why it matters

A faster, more reliable Android app gives X a better shot at retaining and growing its user base in Android-dominant markets, where a broken app has likely cost it downloads and engagement for years.