Google Releases Flutter 1.17 And Dart 2.8, Here’s Everything That You Need To Know!

By Author: Rushabh Patel
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Google Releases Flutter 1.17 and Dart 2.8, Here’s everything that you need to know!
Mobile apps have now become the best weapons for skyrocketing your business. Launched in 2017 and written in Dart programming language, Flutter is a newbie in the app development field. Still, as it has won the heart of app developers, the recent release of the new versions of Flutter and Dart has taken the digital world by storm. Flutter app development professionals are now eager to see what they will get from Dart 2.8 and Flutter 1.17 and how it is different from the old version, Flutter 1.12. After 6 months of releasing Flutter 1.12, Google has come up with the latest version with material widgets, performance improvements, and a lot.
Moreover, we know Flutter as one of the cross-platform frameworks to manage the app development process without making a mess of the available non-native codes. With basic skills of using Dart, programmers can easily develop a consistent app UI. Besides, in the alpha version, Flutter 1.9 backs up Catalina and macOS, whereas v1.12 has reached the pre-alpha state into maturity. Google has taken a ...
... slightly longer time to release the first stable update of Flutter and Dart, as this organization has retooled its infrastructure.
Now, read this blog to know what Google has offered for every enthusiastic Flutter app developer.
Metal Support in Flutter 1.17 – Good news for iOS-friendly app developers
Apple’s graphics API is not something new to iOS app makers. With the advent of Flutter 1.17, programmers can use Metal API instead of OpenGL to deal with the GPU of Apple’s devices. It results in the faster performance of Flutter apps. Thus, when your iPhones and iPads work with Metal, you can find your app running quickly.
Also, better Metal support has increased the iOS app implementation speed by almost 50% depending on the workload. But, old iOS device users with an A7 chip and no Metal support do not need to be frustrated. For them, Flutter will be back to OpenGL.
Flutter 1.17 with fresh and unique Material Widgets
It is the right time to take more advantages of Material Design with the new Flutter 1.17 version. Apart from working with Material Widgets, it presents you with different other updates. For instance, developers can now use the new NavigationRail to add responsive navigation models to Flutter applications.
Furthermore, it presents a navigation widget created by the Material Design developers. This NavigationRail is one of the best options of applications, swapping between mobile and desktop form factors. With the increasing app screen size, it is not difficult to switch for BottomNavigator.
Besides, we have noticed updates for DatePicker and TextSelection widgets. New DatePicker visual elements go with the latest released Material guidelines. You can find a new mode for text input, while TextSelection has improved iOS and Android fidelity with longer buttons.
Material Design has also influenced Flutter Text Theming, and in the latest update, Google has refined the TextTheme API to match the Material details. However, as there is no change in the name, developers do no need to break the code.
Another notable thing is the availability of Animations Package, offering previously designed animations to implement Material Motion.
With the new release of Dart and Flutter versions, Google seems to be promising to solve previous app development woes. Stable SDKs of Dart 2.8 and Flutter 1.17 will surely develop stronger and more robust apps across any platform.
Due to the better capabilities and higher power of these technologies, the Flutter app development company can find hope of providing the best solution.
With new Google fonts
Fonts and text- these are two related words. As one of the enthusiasts of innovative Material Text Scale application, you may have an interest in unique Google fonts for Flutter.
Developers, who love experimentation, will try out these Google Fonts. They can go to fonts.google.com and take fonts to apply them in your application. Now, while preparing the app for the final publication, they can decide on keeping the font pre-packed or downloadable by users from the API.
Memory size and performance
For Flutter 1.17, Google’s main target is performance and memory. When you think of upgrading the app to use this new version, your users can find small apps, reduced memory usage, and faster animations. In fact, the best point is that you can minimize the usage of GPU by 40% for standard iOS animations depending on the available hardware.
Besides, the release ensures a notable change to the app size. For instance, the size of Android-friendly Flutter Gallery Sample is about 8.1MB while it was 9.6MB in 2019. It proves the decrease in the size of your app. Moreover, the reduced use of memory yields better performance.
Superformula and MGM
Superformula is one of the organizations known for amazing innovations. Recently, this organization has dealt with MGM Resorts to make a major update to mobile apps with re-development of Flutter. As the new version of Flutter has revealed a higher speed and versatility, it offers good value for users.
Moreover, MGM and Superformula created a unique MGM design language applicable to web and mobile platforms. With Flutter-codebase, you can now redesign your app and launch it to app stores.
Change to accessibility and internationalization
As accessibility is one of the things to focus, you need to reach the Flutter app to lots of users. Regarding the accessibility, we have to say that Google has dealt with accessibility features related to scrolling and input widgets.
Google’s engineers have also worked on a few issues affecting Samsung Keyboard IMEs. Also, the latest release has pleased Korean developers due to the chance to inputting text in Korean languages.
Dart 2.8 – What new things will amaze us?
Compatible with Null Safety
While working on Dart, Google has made a thoughtful step to prepare it for Sound Null Safety. Besides, it ensures that each of the chosen variables has a non-null value. Null references indicate the potential of app crashes. This crash mainly turns up when a code interprets variables with null values.
Moreover, implementation of Sound Null Safety is one of the major steps, resulting in modifications to libraries of Dart programming language. Surely, Google wants that app developers have to stay updated with these modifications and record issues on their trackers.
Pub tool with some refinements
With the new release of Dart version, Google has focused more on the special pub client tool. Both Dart and Flutter use this tool to manage app packages. The latest introduced Dart SDK 2.8 improves this tool for the pub dev repository.
Moreover, you can use it, avoiding the constraint of the present version. Google team has found that they can run the pub very fast, downloading different packages at a time.
Now, in conclusion, we have shared some more facts. In the last few months, Google has not been clear about the time of its proposed release and the code to be integrated into it. Recently, Google has announced some modifications to the release process. Besides, it thinks of declaring its stable releases quarterly. While solving previous bugs, the new Flutter version offers better Metal assistance on iOS and incorporates Material widgets. Now, you can look for developers to create Flutter app with this new version.