Flutter: The Future Of Cross-platform App Development

By Author: Copper Mobile
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What’s common between Google Ads, Alibaba, BMW, Google Pay, Reflectly, Birch Finance, and Toyota? They’re all developed using Flutter. First described in 2015 and released in 2017, Google’s Flutter is the most rapidly growing cross-platform app development platform. The sole reason behind Google’s inception of Flutter is the look-alike codebase with similar user interface views and user experiences that iOS & Android possess.

Flutter today is the most popular cross-platform mobile framework used by global developers, according to a 2021 developer survey by Statista. But the question is why Flutter is so popular, and why do experts believe it to be the most dominant amongst the other cross-platform mobile app development frameworks?

To unleash an answer, Let’s explore why it is referred to as the future of cross-platform development.

Flutter: A Detailed Introduction
Flutter is an open-source UI software development kit made by Google. Further, with the announcement of Flutter 3.0 on Google’s I/O 2022, Flutter has become one of the most discussed app development platforms in the industry. ...
... According to the Flutter community, more than 500,000 apps have been shipped to hundreds of million devices.

Flutter 3.0 allows its users to develop applications for six platforms iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, web, and Google Fuchsia. A single codebase results in unparalleled productivity of developers while enabling enterprises to turn their ideas into reality. In previous releases, Google’s Flutter supplemented iOS and Android with web and Windows support, and now Flutter 3 adds stable support for macOS and Linux apps.

Before we explore why Flutter is the most preferred cross-platform app development framework, let’s look at the evolution of Flutter from its inception to the introduction of Flutter 3.0.

A Sneak Peek into the History of Flutter Apps
Initially, Flutter was introduced by Google at I/O 2017 and continued promoting its multi-platform capabilities at I/O 2018 to transform the whole app development process by amalgamating the iterative development model of the web with hardware-accelerated graphics rendering and pixel-level control. The primary Flutter UI toolkit is written in C, C++, and Dart, aiming to create beautiful, natively-compiled applications.

With the release of the Flutter 1.0 in December 2018, Google enabled the developers to begin using the SDK to make app creation more accessible. Further, at Google I/O 2019, Flutter’s support for desktop and web platforms was publicly announced, in addition to the tools for developing Flutter apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, and the web.

It’s no news that Google has been gradually equipping the platform with robust framework capabilities, one-of-a-kind widgets, strategic integration with the underlying platforms, a rich library of packages, and many performances and tooling improvements.

Also, Read A Quick Guide On Native Vs. Cross-Platform Application Development

Why is Flutter the Future of Cross-Platform Development?

Easy set up equipped with excellent documentation
Being supported by Google, this framework comes with detailed and easy-to-understand documentation that can help the developers to develop a cross-platform app and solve any challenges during a project.

Single Codebase for multiple platforms
Flutter is known as the best cross-platform app development framework because it equips the developers with the ability to build and deploy a robust app using a single code base. This ultimately increases productivity, saves much time, and helps enterprises in a faster market rollout.

Customizable UI Widgets
Another critical feature of Flutter is the entirely customizable platform-centric UI widgets. There are primarily two sets of Flutter widgets, Cupertino and Material Design; these widgets help mobile app developers design platform-specific UI/UX, giving users a native-like experience.

Faster development and easy debugging
Flutter enables you to use a single codebase to develop cross-platform applications. Hence, it significantly reduces the time and effort required in app development. The reason behind the faster development is the use of it uses Dart programming, which focuses on ease of use and usability. As it entails C-like syntax, thus one can compile it into the JavaScript code using a JIT compiler.

Firebase Integration
The next benefit of using Flutter is integrating with Firebase, a Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform by Google to create web and mobile applications. Firebase benefits developers by offering databases, analytics, crash reporting, and messaging services. And since Flutter can be easily integrated with Firebase, developers using Flutter can also reap the benefits of Firebase.

Ideal for MVP
You might have often heard the term MVP. Basically minimum viable product (MVP) refers to a test product that is built with an aim to intrigue the target audience to understand the need of the built product.

For entrepreneurs or enterprises who envision raising funds for product development or want the product faster into the market, Flutter is ideal for developing an MVP, considering the less time and effort you need to build an app.

Large Community Support:
Flutter is backed by significant community support. The 25k GitHub represents the growing popularity of Flutter. Besides, the community support Google itself looks into bugs encountered by developers using Flutter, making it an extremely suitable platform for hybrid app development.

Wrapping it Up!
With that read, you now have multiple reasons to believe why Flutter is the indisputable king of mobile apps in the near future, empowering businesses and developers with numerous benefits. The abundance of distinctive features, single code base, faster time to market, and the native-like user interface have helped Flutter stand out from the rest.

If you are planning to build your cross-platform application, choosing Flutter can be one of the best decisions. However, the decision will depend on multiple factors. For example, if you need expert advice or a helping hand to guide you through your app development journey, our tech heads at Copper Mobile would love to hear your ideas and help you put the best foot forward. Contact Us now!

At Copper Mobile, we’ve designed our business to be flexible; we know no two business problems are the same. With that in mind, we offer a range of services and engagement models to ensure we have a variety of ways to best serve our clients. Whether you need our help in one specific area or need us to bring all of our capabilities to the table, you can be sure we have the experience, expertise and flexibility to best serve you.