Flutter backed by the powerhouse Google has been among the top players in the mobile application industry. The industry of cross-platform hybrid applications is booming with a single codebase for both the platforms that are iOS and Android. Flutter faces stiff competition from players such as React Native powered by Facebook, Phone Gap from Adobe and Xamarin from Microsoft. Each platform is known for its unique features, among which Flutter is known for its great performance and simplicity. Flutter was released at Google I/O in 2017 and the full announcement was made on February 2018 in World Congress for Mobile. Flutter defines the era of modern application development and single-handedly builds apps for android, iOS and newly developed platforms Google Fuchsia.
There exist many reasons for choosing Flutter as your mobile app development partner such as its open-source ness and freedom that it provides. Flutter has become very popular due to its programming language Dart that uses the C++ rendering engine. The things that make it special are that Flutter provides its widgets and its architecture is purely based on reactive programming. You can use Flutter to make wonderful 2D apps with enough support for geolocation, cameras, storage, and network. Flutter is the most suitable when you need to develop impressive branded designs or stock platform applications. The best use cases of Flutter is the advertising medium AdWords app made by Google itself to keep detailed track of ad buys.
Flutter is trusted by the largest company of China that is Alibaba for its eCommerce mobile platform and thus there exists no reason for you to not put faith in it. The whole of the developer community is seeing a lot of value in Flutter betting upon it as the future of hybrid apps. Many app owners are availing benefits of Flutter to streamline their development process. The following article covers valid reasons why Flutter is the best choice for mobile app development.
What Are the Reasons to Select Flutter for Mobile App Development?
Flutter offers lots of advantages to the developer community and the owners of the app as well. Google is putting a lot of effort to make the framework user-friendly and very easy to use. Let us look into its unique features which make it a go for all mobile app development frameworks.
Cross-Platform or Hybrid App Development
Now you can run your applications on both the platforms that are android and iOS by just having a single codebase thanks to Flutter. There is no need to develop and maintain separate applications for different platforms. Flutter is a hybrid application development framework and reduces the daily efforts of both the users and the developers. The Fuchsia platform is an Operating system developed by Google and is already being considered the future replacement of Android. Flutter is the best way to get started with the Fuchsia platform.
Very Quick Responsive and Hot Reloads
Developers are seeing the changes right away in the application model which is one of the great reasons to love Flutter. Teams can become more responsive in fixing bugs, the addition of new features and experimentation. Flutter has led to a great collaboration between the developers and designers for all the important tasks. However, being a native app development it may take some time still is very fast according to the experts. Now you can easily and quickly respond to live glitches saving a lot of money and embarrassment. Generally, mobile-based startups need to be very responsive in their services and the framework must be adaptive due to the dynamic nature of the industry.
Minimal Coding Requirement
The programming language that Flutter uses is Dart and is purely object-oriented. Flutter is very similar to React Native and its programming style is declarative and reactive. Dart is easy to understand and is very close to general programming languages C++ and Java. Dart is also much respected because of its Ahead of Time compilation and Just in Time compilation. Flutter is known for its attribute hot reload capability which improves overall development workflow. Now there is no requirement of an entirely new build for refreshing the user interface during the development.
Very Suitable for an MVP
Flutter can help you display your product to the investors through a single native application. Now you are not required to develop different applications based upon android and iOS. With the help of flutter, you can very easily display your MVP and discuss your business model with great simplicity. Hence you can easily save a lot of time and resources that are generally spent on the development and testing of project prototypes.
An Impressive Set of Widgets
Flutter offers fast, natural-looking, customizable and extensible widgets regardless of the screen size. Widgets are considered very important for application interface and view. Flutter is a very popular framework for the creation of complex widgets which are often used for the entire screens and app itself.
Flutter is equipped with a complete set of widgets in the style of Apple’s Cupertino pack and Google’s Material Design. Widgets are directly rendered in the Skia engine without the usage of a real widget manufacturer tool. There is no doubt in the proven fact that Flutter provides a very smooth UI experience compared to another cross-platform framework.
Ease to Set Up
The best thing about Flutter is that it can be easily set up on lower-end machines. Flutter does not require a very powerful operating system hence you need not spend extra money on powerful machines. Flutter is known among developers for its frictionless iteration.
Simplified Access to Native Features
Flutter provides simple access to very important native functions such as geo location and camera. You can easily use your existing Swift, Java and Objective C code to easily access SDK along with native features on Android and iOS.
Powerful Support and Backing
Maybe you need not worry when your framework is backed upon by the pioneer in the field of web technologies. Flutter is backed by Google and has a very talented and impressive team working on it day and night. If you are facing problems using Flutter than there is always a team of best engineers in the world to quickly resolve it. Google has a dedicated Material Design team and a strong community of about 1000 professionals who are contributing day and night to the technology. Google is investing a lot towards the growth of Flutter due to the rising competition from other platforms such as React Native.
What Are the Things That Require Improvement?
Flutter is in the growing stage and has enough room for gradual improvement. Let us highlight some of these points.
- Flutter does not provide good support to web browsers
- The library support system of Flutter is not that extensive
- Flutter does not support Android TV as well as Apple TV
- No direct support for continuous integration with Jenkins and Travis
Conclusion
The main requirement for Flutter as a hybrid framework is to save a lot of money and build your app quickly. The development of the same application on separate platforms takes a lot of time and resources. Flutter was made in keeping the focus on complex visuals, productivity, and native performance. Flutter is said by many as the future of cross-platform hybrid applications. Flutters mitigate the risk of errors and help you deliver an overall unified experience. It is a very well-known fact that Google-powered Flutter is considered the future of cross-platform hybrid applications.
app development concept -DepositPhotos
