Airbnb Open-Sources MvRx for Android App Development in Kotlin

MvRx (pronounced “mavericks”) helps Android developers implement common features and integrate their apps properly with the OS. MvRx is written in Kotlin and powers all Android development at Airbnb, writes Airbnb engineer Gabriel Peal.

Tink is Google Cryptographic Library for the Cloud, Android, and iOS

Tink is a multi-language, cross-platform cryptographic library developed by a group of cryptographers and security engineers at Google to help developers implement cryptography correctly without being cryptographic experts. Under development for the last two years, version 1.2 adds support for Cloud, Android, and iOS platforms, and C++ and Objective-C.

How Reddit Rewrote Their iOS App to Improve Performance, Modularity, and Testing

Reddit has been hard at work in the last year to improve the performance of their iOS app while also making it suitable for faster iteration cycles, improved test coverage, and better extensibility. All of this was made possible by evolving the app original MVC architecture into a Model-View-Presenter (MVP) architecture.

Swift 4.2 Hits the Road

One year after the release of Swift 4, Swift 4.2 is now official. It brings a number of improvements to the language and the standard library, including better generics, Hashable protocol, and random number generation. Additionally, writes Swift maintainer Ted Kremenek, Swift 4 delivers faster compile times and improves the debugging experience.

Alexa Smart Home Skills Gain Flexibility with New API

The latest update to Amazon Smart Home Skill API, available as a preview, introduces new capabilities that can be used as building blocks to model device settings or features. Additionally, Smart Home skills have gained greater flexibility by enabling the use of custom intents.