Today special attention is focused on the development of mobile applications that can be used for contactless payments, shopping online, e-learning and whatever we can imagine. 5G technology is increasing the capabilities of smartphones and mobile development. That’s why it is relevant and important to evaluate what technologies there are in the software arena to keep up with fast-growing innovations. Languages, frameworks and toolkits should face new demands of the 21st century. It’s the fastest performance, automation, great UI, very short time spent on development and a lot of perks new generations want and need in their smartphones. Among mobile development trends for 2020-2021 we could crystalize:
- Cross platform apps with less coding and better personalization
- AR, VR implementation
- AI-driven chatbots and all of AI solutions
- Connection with IoT smart devices
- Mobile wallets and voice payments
- Intuitive, button-free UI/UX and advanced animations
- Accessible solutions and UI/UX design for people with disabilities
These development trends and solutions users want to have in their apps, can be perfectly developed with Flutter – cross platform UI framework. Let’s proceed to why Flutter is an ideal framework for implementing the best of mobile development solutions.
Flutter’s beating the record
Flutter has freshened the mobile development all across the whole world. It is a free open source software development kit which allows to build attractive and customized solutions at less time without sacrificing neither quality nor performance.
Stack Overflow has already conducted a developer research for 2020 and let’s have a look at what the research tells us about trendy and most adored technologies among engineers. Flutter takes the 3rd place after .Net Core and Torch in the category of most loved frameworks, libraries and tools. 68,8% of flutter engineers love it and will continue to work with it.
10.7% of developers who are not developing with Flutter expressed interest in developing in it. Mainly because Flutter brings easiness and pleasure to mobile development. It feels like it eliminates all the major fears of both developers and product owners – missed deadlines, poor performance and barriers in creating functionality you need . Instead, flutter benefits make businesses thrive because they receive very affordable, fast and first-of-class mobile apps.
Key 7 benefits of Flutter
Definitely, Flutter is a trend in cross-app development and it is already on the wishlist of entrepreneurs and engineers. The technology provides a completely native experience and engaging user interface features. Another bonus is that Flutter software is cost and time efficient, because one flutter app requires less time than two separate iOS or Android applications. There are 7 reasons why Flutter is a trend in mobile development.
- Cross-platform app development
Flutter’s magic is that you write code for iOS and Android simultaneously. One Flutter engineer can cope with both platforms, which means less time for development. It is very efficient when person is responsible for code, so work won’t be not scattered between two engineers, or more.
- Shallow learning curve.
It means it’s a nice process for engineers to learn Flutter especially if they are aware of the Java language. Developing experience with Flutter gets top mark. You can find more of iOS software engineer’s feedback for Flutter in Pros and Cons of Flutter development.
- UI you will never forget
Flutter premiere function is building a wonderful User Interface. Positioned by founding team on the official website:
Flutter is Google’s UI toolkit for building beautiful, natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase
Flutter’s layered architecture allows fast rendering and customized design. In Flutter development engineers operate and create widgets which are really decisive because they are those visual blocks of the app. They allow easy scrolling, seamless navigation, customization of icons, fonts and sizes. You can build stretchy headers which really feels very innovative and customized for the whole screen width.
All the Flutter code is compiled to the ARM machine with the help of Dart. Dart is a very carefully chosen language by the Google team who wanted Flutter to be fast and effective. In performance and code compilation Dart works very well and reduces time of compilation a lot.
Data visualization in Flutter is also great. You can add monthly sales charts which are really eye-catching. Hide bottom navigation bars when scrolling quickly – just whatever you want to add smooth swiping experience to your app.
- Fast development
Flutter stands out with the Hot Reload option. Engineers can preview the code as they build it. If necessary, they drive changes on the go, fix bugs, experiment with UI blocks without recompiling the app.
By the way, Google has already released the Flutter 1.20 version with faster performance and UI improvements. Flutter teams fixed performance and made tree shaking icons default. It helps reduce the size of the app by removing icons which are not used. Text autofill, a feature engineers were expected to have, is already added. InteractiveViewer widget was also added into the flutter development process.
The development team says that the release of Flutter 1.20 is the biggest release yet, but there is a lot to expect in the future. As an example, the team is planning to add sound null safety support which has recently come to Dart language. With null safety types in code are non-nullable by default which means values can’t be null unless the engineer says they can be.
- Flutter is cost and time effective for startups
Flutter widgets will create a harmonious combination of diverse blocks with media and animation. Startups using flutter can quickly create well-tuned apps for business and transmit originality of their brand via mesmerizing UI/UX design. Flutter minimizes time for app development and is apt for realizing any startup idea. That’s why Flutter mobile apps turn out to be affordable for startups.
- Desktop and web app capabilities
Flutter team has ruined traditional approaches to cross platform development. Instead of splitting mobile and web development, they decided to unite under one technology different operating systems. At the same time, performance is not hurt and Flutter offers so much support for engineers.
Google enabled Flutter mobile apps with web support which means web view control allows view and display dynamic content without rewriting. Desktop is among the most popular new features in Flutter. The team works on making flutter desktop apps first-of-class experience. Flutter supports macOS and Linux desktop apps, and Windows platform support is currently under development.
- Flutter AR capabilities
AR and VR technologies mesmerize users and more engineers seek for 3D, AR and Vr development tools. What to do if you’ve chosen Flutter, but now you’re thinking of how to develop AR functionality? Is Flutter capable of driving AR in mobile apps?
Yes, Flutter does support AR. To build Flutter AR apps, you can use Unity AR Foundation, a wrapper for ARCore (offered by Google) and ARKit (offered by Apple). For creating 3D experiences or building successful games, you add Unity 3D widget into your flutter project.
Follow Flutter engineers who develop and share great AR Flutter solutions. There is a developer sharing his experience on reddit about developing RPG game written with Flutter. The app, by the way, got 350 thousand downloads in the first 3 months!
Apps built with Flutter
Businesses benefit a lot from flutter apps that are rich in functionality and impress with UI. Let’s have a look at apps built with this technology.
Alibaba, an e-commerce global platform. Alibaba group used Flutter to build an app called Xianyu that now has over 50 million users.
Realtor.com, a platform for searching and renting apartments and houses. The team was working on integrating Flutter into iOS and Android apps to deliver seamless UI experiences and improve developer experience at the same time.
Google ads allows creating and managing advertising campaigns and see stats. It’s a very powerful tool to generate leads with successful product or services ads.
Reflectly, personal mobile journal driven by AI. It offers to create questions to reflect upon every day. The app has a really beautiful interface.
How do engineers treat flutter?
Flutter surprises even older developers who have tried many tools and languages and have solid experience in developing. They say Flutter is a big deal and will develop more and more. Flutter has already gained 100K on Github which is incredible success for such a new framework. Flutter has officially won React Native as the most searched framework by Google Trends.
Gathering engineers’ feedback for flutter via Rody Davis podcast series there is no doubt in saying that Flutter is going to dominate mobile development.
Engineers are amazed by Flutter’s stability. Animations, reusable code, cross-platform app development – everything is so reactive and gives an opportunity to build it however you want it to be.
Is Flutter the future of mobile development?
Flutter seems to be the most advantageous framework in mobile development. Building software for the business is lucrative, because mobile apps generate you clients and strengthen your brand. For this Flutter comes as an excellent assistant. You can hire one flutter engineer to develop iOS and Android apps at once. You will be impressed how practical-to-use applications you can build with Flutter and how many wonderful UI features could be implemented. Flutter benefits can definitely meet any business need and development of desktop and web applications ensures Flutter’s stability and further chances for success.
