What is the 'swift syndrome'?
Kotlin was developed in the open from much of its development and you can see how the language evolves based on the feedback of early adopters. There is no rush to 1.0 until they feel they got the right mix of features.
I just think the way Jetbrains approached the development of the language is more responsible and it bodes well for future iteration of the language.
but the hype was mostly done by the apple disciples iirc, so it might be a little unfair to hold that against the language.
However, Python 2/3 is a better example for breaking backwards compatibility.
But I could be wrong.