So, is Jetpack Compose “for realz”?
You might guess that my answer is “yes”, given that I am starting a newsletter on the subject. 😁
Partly, that is due to competitive pressures. Apple is pursuing SwiftUI, a similar sort of reactive declarative UI framework. Google will want to keep pace.
Partly, that is due to the fact that this is an independent effort, not tied to other Google teams. For example, 2018’s hype feature for Android 9 was “slices”. But slices never amounted to much, because the “killer app” for them was supposed to be Google Search. When Search stopped emphasizing slices, interest in this technology dried up. Compose does not need some other Google product in order to be a success.
So, I’m fairly convinced that Compose will be a significant player for Android UI development in 2021 and beyond.