What is AndroidX and Why It is Important to Migrate to AndroidX

4 min readOct 13, 2022

ADMIN IN ANDROID, ANDROID APPS BLOG, ANDROIDX, APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT, APPS

If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase, AndroidX is a brand-new open-source initiative that Google is introducing to package libraries with Jetpack. In short, Google decided to start cleaning up their act and utilise a new approach along with new library names because the old method of managing libraries was becoming difficult.

AndroidX Overview

The Android team leverages the new open-source project called AndroidX to create, test, and distribute libraries for Jetpack.

A significant improvement over the original Android Support Library is AndroidX. Similar to the Support Library, AndroidX is developed separately from the Android OS and offers backward compatibility between different Android releases. By offering feature parity and additional libraries, AndroidX completely replaces the Support Library. Additionally, AndroidX has the following capabilities:

All AndroidX packages are located in a single namespace that begins with the letters android x. The comparable AndroidX.* packages have been mapped to the Support Library packages. See the Package Refactoring page for a complete mapping of all the old classes and build objects to the new ones.

AndroidX packages, in contrast to the Support Library, are independently updated and maintained. Beginning with version 1.0.0, the AndroidX packages strictly adhere to semantic versioning. AndroidX libraries in your app can be freely updated.

The AndroidX library will be where all future Support Library work takes place. This entails updating the original Support Library objects and adding fresh Jetpack elements.

Why migrate to AndroidX?

The support library is no longer being maintained and is now at version 28.0.0. Therefore, moving to AndroidX is crucial and necessary if we want bug fixes or new features that would previously have been included in the Support Library. The AndroidX namespace will be used for the release of all new Jetpack libraries.

There are a lot of benefits to switching from Android Support Library to AndroidX. The most recent version information is below:

Android 10 (API level 29)*

Until August 3, 2020, new apps must comply.
required for app updates on November 2, 2020
Better package management:

You get better consistent naming, more regular releases, and independent yet standardised versioning with AndroidX. Other libraries, such as Google Play services, Firebase, Butterknife, Databinding Mockito, and SQL Delight, have switched to using the AndroidX namespace libraries.

Migration is mandatory:

The AndroidX namespace will be used for the release of all new Jetpack libraries. You must switch to the AndroidX namespace in order to utilise features like Jetpack Compose or CameraX, for instance.

Hassle-free App Architecture:

If you want to create an app using Google’s Single-Activity Architecture recommendation, you must use the Jetpack Navigation Component.

Google recommended arch:

MVVM pattern combined with Repos and Arch Components. To make the code base scalable, maintainable, and to get better CC, it is inevitable to create big scale programmes using a modular architecture to isolate via modules. Writing exams is made simple.

Conclusion:

There is no getting around this migration because the support library artefacts are being deprecated and all future development is moving to AndroidX. XcelTec is the best option if you want to transfer an existing Android app to Android X. We are a software company that has long offered the top mobile and web solutions.

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