MobilePro #167: Gemini in Android Studio, Firebase Studio, Kotlin, Swift, and Ruby's decline in popularity, Vertex AI in Firebase, and more…

From more extensible APIs to customizable UI, discover how HubSpot's latest developer tools empower you to build tailored solutions. Explore powerful integration tools and enhanced capabilities that let you create exactly what your customers need, right where they're getting work done.

Hi ,

Welcome to the 167th edition of MobilePro! This week, the mobile dev world is buzzing with transformative updates—from Gemini’s enterprise debut to Firebase’s full-stack evolution and critical platform shifts:

💼 Android Studio goes pro: Gemini AI tools now cater to enterprise devs with privacy-first features and a new subscription model.

🧰 Firebase turns full-stack: Firebase Studio merges Genkit, Gemini, and IDX into a single streamlined dev environment.

🤖 Firebase and Vertex AI integration: Vertex AI brings Gemini Live APIs and React Native support for smarter cross-platform apps.

📱 Android 16 enters beta: Predictive back, haptic APIs, and stronger security lead the latest UX-driven release.

📉 Kotlin, Swift, and Ruby’s declining popularity: Kotlin, Swift, and Ruby dip in TIOBE index as platform limits and Python’s rise fuel their decline.

In our What’s Happening in AI? section, we dive into how Microsoft Research is teaching AI to debug your code—pinpointing bugs and auto-suggesting fixes using real-time context and prompt tuning. As always, stick around for our Developer Tip to boost your workflow, and don’t miss the Did You Know? segment!

Let’s dive in!

P.S.: If you have any suggestions or feedback, or would like us to feature your project on a particular subject, please write to us. Just respond to this email!

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If there’s any major news in the world of mobile app dev in the last week, MobilePro has you covered.

What are mobile app developers discussing? Do you have any concerns, advice, or tutorials to share? MobilePro brings them to you all in one place.

AI is evolving fast—are you keeping up? MobilePro brings you key discussions, trends, and expert takes in one place.

MobilePro presents the latest titles from Packt that ought to be useful for mobile developers.

iOS 18 Programming for Beginners

The most basic building block of any application is text, which we use to provide or request information from a user. Some text requires special treatment, such as password fields, which must be masked for privacy reasons. In this excerpt from Juan C. Catalan’s SwiftUI Cookbook, you will implement different types of SwiftUI Text views. A Text view is used to display one or more lines of read-only text on the screen. A TextField view is used to display multiline editable text, and a SecureField view is used to request private information that should be masked, such as passwords.

Implementing SwiftUI Text views

You will implement multiple types of text-related views and modifiers. Each step in this excerpt applies minor changes to the view, so note the UI changes that occur after each step. Let's get started:

Replace the initial ContentView body variable with our own VStack. The ContentView should look like the following code:

struct ContentView: View {

var body: some View {

VStack{

Text("Hello World")

}

}

}

Add the .fontWeight(.medium) modifier to the text and observe the text weight change in the canvas preview:

Text("Hello World")

.fontWeight(.medium)

Add two state variables to the ContentView.swift file: password and someText. Place the values below the ContentView struct declaration. These variables will hold the content of the user's password and Textfield inputs:

struct ContentView: View {

@State private var password = "1234"

@State private var someText = "initial text"

var body: some View {

...

}

Now, we will start adding more views to the VStack. Each view should be added immediately after the previous one. Add SecureField and a Text view to the VStack. The Text view displays the value entered in SecureField:

SecureField("Enter a password", text: $password)

.padding()

Text("password entered: \(password)")

.italic()

Add TextField and a Text view to display the value entered in TextField:

TextField("Enter some text", text: $someText)

.padding()

Text(someText)

.font(.largeTitle)

.underline()

Now, let's add some other Text views with modifiers to the list:

Text("Changing text color and make it bold")

.foregroundStyle(.blue)

.bold()

Text("Use kerning to change space between characters in the text")

.kerning(7)

Text("Changing baseline offset")

.baselineOffset(100)

Text("Strikethrough")

.strikethrough()

Text("This is a multiline text implemented in

SwiftUI. The trailing modifier was added

to the text. This text also implements

multiple modifiers")

.background(.yellow)

.multilineTextAlignment(.trailing)

.lineSpacing(10)

Now is the moment to test the app. We can choose to run the app in a simulator or click the Play button in the canvas preview, which allows for interactivity. Play with the app and enter some text in the SecureField and TextField. Text entered in the SecureField will be masked, while text in the TextField will be shown.

***

There are plenty more such recipes, which you can read in SwiftUI Cookbook.

SwiftUI Cookbook

One of the best practices for a successful mobile app is to analyze your funnel. Create a funnel to track where users drop out of the flow. You can use tools like Firebase, Mixpanel or UXCam to do so. Explore more such tips here.

In case you have any tips to share with your fellow mobile developers, do reply to this mail and we’d be glad to feature you in a future edition of MobilePro.

GitHub just launched Security Campaigns—targeted, org-wide initiatives to help developers fix vulnerable dependencies and slash security debt. The update brings guided fix tracking, visibility dashboards, and automated pull requests. Integrated with Dependabot and code scanning, it’s a serious step toward proactive, scalable security hygiene. Developers can now ship safer code—faster and smarter.

Sourced from SD Times.

👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this edition of MobilePro. If you have any suggestions and feedback, or would just like to say hi to us, please write to us. Just respond to this email!

Cheers,

Runcil Rebello,

Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro