Which of the famous applications in the world are written with Kotlin? Are there applications that were first developed with one programming language and after some time migrated to another language?
It cannot be denied that you and I use at least one application every day. Of course, nowadays, some of our grandmothers also learned more or less to work with applications. We don’t care what language our popular apps are written in. But believe me, the language in which an application is written is important for many reasons.
For the application developer, choosing the right language for the project is very decisive. The discussion about migration from one language to another is not a useless discussion. This migration has happened for some of the most important Android applications.
In this article, I want to introduce you to the most important and famous Android applications developed with Kotlin language. In this introduction, I will also answer the two questions that were raised above.
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The most important Kotlin applications
Developing applications and marketing it is not an easy task. It has prerequisites and steps. The cost and time that businesses spend on app development varies. The power and capabilities of the application development language become important because it allows the application developers to complete the project in less time and much more efficiently. Kotlin is one of those languages that allows Android app developers to build more beautiful apps with less coding.
Android applications developed with Kotlin can be divided into two categories: those that migrated from Java to Kotlin and those that were originally written in Kotlin. The subject of this article is the introduction of applications that completely or partially replaced Kotlin with Java.
Applications that migrated from Java to Kotlin
In 2017, Google officially announced that it has chosen Kotlin as the language for developing Android apps. In fact, Google replaced Java with Kotlin because of its advantages. After Google’s announcement, many businesses decided to move their Android apps built with Java to Kotlin.
One of the important reasons for businesses to migrate to Kotlin was that developers can use the Kotlin language to diagnose and fix application performance problems faster. This causes the user experience of apps developed with Kotlin to be greatly improved.
I will start with the most famous apps.
1. Pinterest
I know this app needs no introduction. Pinterest is one of the first popular apps to migrate to Kotlin. Interestingly, this migration started before Google’s official announcement. Pinterest realized the benefits of Kotlin earlier than other Android apps. Pinterest developers officially announced this migration and talked about it in various social networks.
Pinterest chose Kotlin even though it knew that Kotlin was in its infancy and might cause challenges and problems for the application. But to quote Ryan Cooke in 2017: We at Pinterest use it knowingly about the Kotlin violations, and we know that these problems will be fixed.
2. Coursera
Coursera Android application has more than 10 million active installations. Of course, like Pinterest, the Coursera application has not completely migrated to Kotlin. But in some parts of this app and to improve its overall efficiency, Kotlin has also been used.
3. Uber
Uber is another popular Android app that has more than 500 million active installs on Google Play. The Uber Android application has been distinguished from other Android applications by its extraordinary features and functionality. Perhaps the big investment of this business to use Kotlin in this application is the reason for its fast and error-free performance. Kotlin’s contribution to the Uber application is very significant. The Uber engineering team has discussed the performance of Kotlin in the Uber application in a detailed report citing data and statistics.
4. Evernote
Evernote is one of the most popular Android applications for organizing daily tasks. This application has features that take it far beyond the management and planning apps of personal affairs. This application can also be used to manage team and job tasks. Evernote has more than 100 million active installs. Having said that, it should not be surprising that this application has also replaced Kotlin with Java.
5. Twidere for Twitter/Mastodon
Twidere for Twitter is an application for Twitter lovers. If you want to experience pure Twitter without any ads, I recommend installing this app. This application allows you to have multiple Twitter accounts together and also customize almost everything. Working with this Android application is very smooth and smooth. Twidere for Twitter owes its excellent performance to Kotlin.
6. Kickstarter
The most interesting and different Kotlin app I want to introduce is Kickstarter. This application is a place for artists to get to know each other and also to find investors or supporters for those who want to implement their artistic and creative ideas. Using this application, artists share their art projects with others so that those who are interested in that idea can support it financially. This Android application, which has migrated to Kotlin like other well-known Android apps, is becoming more popular every day.
7. Trello
With the corona epidemic and most businesses working remotely, software and applications for managing projects and team work became very popular and widely used. Trello is the most popular project management app with over 10 million active installs. Very large eBay businesses also use Trello. The Trello development team completely transferred the main commands of the Trello Android application to Kotlin, and the new features they added to the app were also written in Kotlin.
8. Square
Square is one of the most reliable financial services companies in America. This company offers various services. These services include designing and building applications and online payment platforms. In 2015, the company officially announced that it had chosen Kotlin to develop its Android apps. The company’s engineering team wrote about Kotlin’s contribution to their applications and what they do with Kotlin both on the Square blog and at international conferences.
9. Duolingo
Duolingo has more than 500 million users worldwide. Some believe that Duolingo is the best language learning app in the world. This application has completely replaced Java with Kotlin. After migrating to Kathleen Duolingo, he announced that creativity and productivity among the company’s Android developer team has increased.