jetc.dev Newsletter Issue #325

Published: 2026-08-04

Compose 1.0 shipped five years ago, so we celebrate! 🎊

In addition, we are nearly to 12 point releases in those five years. Plus, we track down memory leaks and look at a Remote Compose-powered debug sidecar.

Ooooo… What Did We Get?

Reviewing the release notes for the latest Jetpack Compose update!

The Compose alpha and beta BOMs are up to 2026.07.01. The beta BOM should point to 1.12.0-rc01, as we inch ever-closer to a 1.12.0 stable release. The RC is focused on minor bug fixes, and not all that many of them.

Compose Material3 is up to 1.5.0-alpha25, which is a lot of alphas. This mostly seems to have some API renames and bug fixes.

Remote Compose is out with 1.0.0-alpha16. RemotePaint is now public, RemoteTextStyle supports LineBreak-defined strategies, and you can create RemoteImageBitmap outside of a composable.

Wear Compose is up to 1.7.0-alpha07, with some light API changes plus bug fixes.

And we also received updates to some Compose-related artifacts:

• androidx.constraintlayout:constraintlayout-compose:1.1.2
• androidx.constraintlayout:constraintlayout-compose-android:1.1.2
• androidx.fragment:fragment-compose:1.9.0-rc01
• androidx.ink:ink-authoring-compose:1.1.0-alpha06
• androidx.ink:ink-authoring-compose-android:1.1.0-alpha06
• androidx.ink:ink-brush-compose:1.1.0-alpha06
• androidx.ink:ink-brush-compose-android:1.1.0-alpha06
• androidx.ink:ink-geometry-compose:1.1.0-alpha06
• androidx.ink:ink-geometry-compose-android:1.1.0-alpha06
• androidx.navigation:navigation-compose:2.10.0-beta01 (and multiplatform targets)
• androidx.navigation:navigation-fragment-compose:2.10.0-beta01
• androidx.navigationevent:navigationevent-compose:1.2.0-alpha03 (and multiplatform targets)
• androidx.text:text-vertical-compose:1.0.0-alpha06

Composable Commentary

Posts, videos, and other new information related to Jetpack Compose!

Celebrating 5 years of Jetpack Compose

Five years ago, Jetpack Compose 1.0 was released! 🎉 Google’s Nick Butcher (Mastodon, Bluesky) , Rebecca Franks (Mastodon, Bluesky) , and Loryn Hairston recaps a bit of the history and provide some community shout-outs, including to this very newsletter — thanks!

Video: The inside story of Jetpack Compose

Google’s Clara Bayarri (Mastodon, Bluesky) , Chet Haase (Mastodon, Bluesky) , Romain Guy (Mastodon, Bluesky) , and Tor Norbye (Mastodon, Bluesky) host a special Android Developers Backstage episode, tracing the early decisions that impacted the evolution of Jetpack Compose, leading up to the 1.0 release.

Compose State Has No Name

Adit Lal (Mastodon, Bluesky) wanted a replay debugger for compositions and walked away with a causal log of why recompositions occurred. The objective was to help coding agents better understand how we got to a certain state, rather than simply trying to analyze problem based purely upon that end state.

Fuel Strategy: Paging in Compose Multiplatform

KMP Bits examines Paging for Compose, how you add it to a Compose Multiplatform project, and some stumbling blocks along the way.

Medium: How to build an Android launcher from scratch (with Kotlin & Jetpack Compose)

Jackson F. de A. M. demonstrates how to create a Compose for Android home screen with a swipe-up app drawer that works to start apps. This is much more elaborate and up to date than my old Launchalot sample. 😀

The One-Liner That Was Eating Our Memory

Daniel Bertoldi is working on JetBrains’ Jewel, a Compose for Desktop design system. That project received a memory leak report, and this post explains the research that pointed to an issue with the number of nodes in a lazy tree composable and the bug that caused the problem.

Medium: Yet Another Way to KMP: One Pattern, Three Seams

Gabor Berenyi points out that greenfield projects are easier to wrangle into a particular architecture than are brownfield (existing) projects. So, Gabor tried porting a 13-year-old Java game to Compose Multiplatform and points out the challenges that were encountered.

Other Interesting Links

• Medium: Best Practices for UI Composables in Android
• Medium: How to Build an iOS-Like Predictive Back Animation in Compose Multiplatform
• Medium: Jetpack Compose Fundamentals — Part 7: Understanding Recomposition in Jetpack Compose
• Medium: Multi-Module Navigation in Android: Lessons from a Real Project
• Medium: Polishing the UI: Shared Element Transitions and Custom Shimmers
• Medium: The 3 Jetpack Compose Phases Every Developer Should Understand
• Medium: The Jetpack Compose Mistakes I Made in My First Big Migration
• Medium: The Pillars of Robust Android Applications : Part 3
• Medium: Understanding retain: A New Way to Retain State in Jetpack Compose
• Navigation 3: Does ViewModel Still Need to Be a State Holder?
• One Kotlin codebase, three platforms: building Multidex with Compose Multiplatform
• Reddit: Evolving my Pure Kotlin & Compose RPG Engine

Resource Roundup

100% pure code!

GitHub: livewire-kt / livewire

The livewire-kt team created an interesting use of Remote Compose: extending the “debug panel” past the main app and into a desktop “sidecar” program. Livewire supports Kotlin Multiplatform, supporting Android, iOS, and desktop. Existing plugins support examining SQLite, monitoring network activity, viewing preferences, and tracing recompositions.

GitHub: fopwoc / nav3ksp

Ilya Dobryakov (Bluesky) offers us a KSP-based code generator for Nav3, inspired by Raam Costa’s compose-destinations. Screens are organized into trees with branches, and the library code-generates the routes to make it work.

GitHub: mavericksforever / aquanotify

GitHub user mavericksforever is working on rebuilding OS X’s notification banner system in Compose for Web.

GitHub: Raheelnaz / molecule-viewmodel

Raheel Naz brings us Jetpack ViewModel support for Molecule for Compose for Android.

Other Interesting Links

• GitHub: advait8 / core-globe (3D globe for Compose for Android)
• GitHub: Ali0092 / Sketchy (hand-drawn animated illustrations for Compose Multiplatform)
• GitHub: Kyriakos-Georgiopoulos / Grafima (charting library for Compose for Android and iOS)
• GitHub: uditbhaskar / SKRETCH (scratch card UX for Compose for Android)