Today, we are excited to announce full support for Java and Android! Now, Android developers can easily add real-time features to their applications without worrying about networking, scaling, or writing complicated server code.
Three months ago we launched native Firebase support for iOS and OSX devices. This was our first step into the world of mobile and we were thrilled with the reception. Now, with the new Java / Android SDK, we natively support more than 90% of all smart phones in the world.
Now that Firebase is supported on the web and both major mobile platforms, it's a perfect fit for building cross-platform applications. Each platform creates and consumes the same data type (JSON), and changes written to Firebase on one platform will show up seamlessly on any other.
Firebase's synchronization-based API is especially powerful in mobile applications. The SDK transparently handles caching, reconnecting, and data merging. Apps built with Firebase will remain responsive even when a device is offline, and changes will be synced back to the Firebase servers when a network becomes available again.
Our Java SDK can be used from your backend as well to allow you to synchronize and modify data directly from your servers. This lets you perform additional data processing, trigger events when certain data changes occur, and even mirror your Firebase data in other kinds of data stores.
You can get started using the Firebase Java SDK by following the steps in the Java / Android Quickstart Guide. In addition, check out the sample applications available on GitHub: Chat and Shared Drawing.
We're excited to see the apps you build, and we can't wait for those "pull to refresh" buttons to become a thing of the past.
To get updates on new SDKs as well as new versions of existing SDKs, follow @FirebaseRelease.
