Realm Report
Facts and Trends in Mobile Computing
Download (pdf)Introducing the Realm Report
The Realm Report covers the latest trends and activity patterns from Realm’s global community of active professional mobile application developers.
What languages are mobile developers using?
The migration to modern languages is happening now
There are seven major languages for mobile platforms today, but the balance of power is quickly shifting. Not too long ago, Swift didn’t exist. Now, it towers over Objective-C for iOS developers.
Android users are at the beginning of their own transition. With Java use peaking, Kotlin is on the path to winning the Android platform.
Where are the world’s most advanced mobile devs?
Advanced developers can be found anywhere
Developers building with Realm have advanced beyond the basic default choices. Realm builders push code from 163 countries, but the top ten countries are distributed fairly evenly across the globe.
It’s in analyzing what technologies and platforms that these developers focus on where we see interesting differences emerge.
iOS has its home base in the West
Western devs are targeting the iOS 11 beta faster, with more than 10% of developers in Germany and the USA building for iOS 11 betas.
Western devs are quicker to adopt new iOS tech
Developers in western countries are upgrading to new Realm iOS versions much faster.
They also are quicker to drop the oldest versions of iOS, like iOS 8
If you’re going to adopt new tech, it often means abandoning support for old versions and devices. Western countries seem more willing to make that tradeoff.
For iOS, Germany and the US are always at the top (with Great Britain coming in third)
Three countries’ iOS developers stand above the rest when it comes to iOS 11 adoption, Realm adoption, and speed in dropping of old iOS versions. And Great Britain — despite coming in 12th for total builders — gets kudos for consistently finishing just behind Germany and the US.
With Android, Asia leads the pack
Eastern countries are targeting Android Oreo the fastest
Whereas US was near the top at building apps on iOS 11, it’s near the bottom for Android Oreo, with Russia and Japan moving up.
The lead isn’t as clear with Realm Android adoption rates
Realm Android adoption data suggest that developers in Asian countries are more conservative in pursuing new technologies.
Kotlin adoption rates show the US might be quicker when it comes to Android languages
Kotlin is breathing new air into Android, and might give US developers a leg up in the future of the platform.
For overall mobile development, Germany is the clear winner
Mobile developers in Germany are the dual platform leaders, being the fastest overall to adopt new OS versions and technologies on both Android and iOS.
Kotlin is about to change the whole Android ecosystem
Since Google I/O 2017, Kotlin’s rate of growth has jumped dramatically all over the globe
Before Google I/O, Kotlin was gaining popularity. Now it has stepped onto a new plane of growth. No one wants to be left behind.
Kotlin rising
It’s clear: Java (on Android) is dying. There aren’t simply more Kotlin builders: they’re also switching their apps to Kotlin. In fact, 20% of apps built with Java before Google I/O are now being built in Kotlin. Kotlin may even change how Java is used on the server, too.
In short, Android developers without Kotlin skills are at risk of being seen as dinosaurs very soon.
2018 will be the year of Kotlin
Kotlin will overtake Java in December 2018. That’s about 17 months after Google announced official support at Google I/O, and 2.5 years after Kotlin reached v1.0.
By contrast, it only took 14 months after Swift v1.0’s release before it hit the same milestone.
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Source: The Realm Report is based on behavioral data gathered via the web from Realm’s global community of more than 100,000 active developers.