Flutter: Bridging Platforms with Open-Source Innovation
Applications have become the cornerstone of mobile devices, dominating how we interact with digital content. Recognizing this trend, Google developed Flutter, a framework designed to simplify cross-platform app development. Founded in 2017 and officially launched in 2018, Flutter has been instrumental in creating mobile, web, and desktop applications.
Flutter’s versatility allows developers to build apps for multiple platforms simultaneously, including Google’s Android, Apple’s iOS and macOS, Microsoft’s Windows, Linux, and more. Additionally, Flutter supports Google’s future operating system, Fuchsia, which is expected to replace Android. This comprehensive platform support makes Flutter an attractive choice for developers seeking to deploy apps across various operating systems efficiently.
Native Applications
The term “Native” refers to an application that is specifically compatible with each app store, whether Google or Apple (it is “natural” for the standards required in each store). This necessitates a double investment to create an application that meets the conditions of both stores.
Cross-Platform Applications
Cross-platform applications allow for a user experience similar to that of a native application—using a single codebase instead of working in a dual manner. Flutter is an application development framework that operates on this principle, as do other frameworks.
Hybrid Applications
In this case, we are talking about websites that are layered on top of a mobile app structure, making the site look and behave like an app for all intents and purposes. However, in the end, it remains a website with the same limitations as a site compared to a true application.
PWA
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are, as their name suggests, also not true mobile applications (similar to hybrid applications). They are more advanced websites compared to regular sites because they look and behave exactly like an app when used on mobile devices. It’s worth noting that Google has been promoting the use of PWAs for some time now.
From this brief comparison, it follows that the most efficient and cost-effective approach to building a real application that fits all types of systems in the shortest possible time is to use the Cross-Platform method. We will explain why shortly.
Flutter: Built-in Cross-Platform Development
In the past, developers were forced to create separate applications for Google and Apple. Today, we are light years away from those medieval times. No longer do we have to develop separately for separate systems with different requirements, which also resulted in double development time and double financial investment. Instead, we have interfaces that allow us to “inject” the application into any system from a single source (such as Flutter, for example).
Since its inception, Flutter has gone through several stages and versions. The latest version was Flutter 2.0, which was released on March 3, 2021. Flutter allows you to develop applications in a dedicated programming language called Dart, also developed by Google in 2011. Dart was developed to replace JavaScript for application development, and it allows developers to create native, beautifully designed, and super-fast applications for mobile and desktop.
Additional Cross-Platform Development Frameworks
Today, there are a number of older and dedicated frameworks for developing cross-platform applications, including React Native from Facebook, Xamarin from Microsoft, and Ionic. These frameworks are all well-established and do the job, but the main difference between them and Flutter is that the latter was designed from the start as a cross-platform development framework.
For example, the development foundation in Flutter is based on pre-built widgets that were programmed by Google. The widgets are pre-adapted to each of the different development environments – Android, Apple, Windows, and so on – and essentially save you the trouble of dealing with the issue. This way, you get cross-platform capabilities that are already built into the framework, and all you have to do is build on them.
Another difference between React Native and Flutter (besides the fact that the latter was designed from the start for cross-platform development) is that the first framework requires you to maintain three types of files (HTML, JS, CSS), while the second framework only requires you to maintain one file (Dart). This is a significant time savings, including a variety of specially built test environments – Unit Tests, Widget Tests, Integration Tests. These testing environments (which do not exist in Facebook or Microsoft) allow you to test the application effectively and quickly, in order to release a finished product in record time.
In order to make it worthwhile to work with Flutter, Google has ensured that it has a number of clear advantages in the performance department. The first advantage is the development of mobile and desktop applications at half the usual development costs, as they are reflected in other frameworks. This is in addition to the fact that development costs are also significantly saved, as already mentioned earlier.
Another advantage is real-time development through an innovative feature called Hot Reload. This feature allows you to instantly reflect any change in the code in a visual, easy-to-understand way (instead of having to wait for an update and reload every time). The platform also provides high quality design, graphics, and animation at 60 frames per second (60 FPS), unlike other Cross Platform technologies that force developers to compromise in this regard.
Open Source Community
It is not for nothing that Flutter has become the preferred platform for many developers, as well as the Dart language, which is one of the programming languages that is developing at the fastest pace today. This is evidenced by the abundance of projects being carried out in the framework, as well as the communities that have been created around it and around the Dart language. Just like in open source sites such as WordPress and others, Flutter’s open source community offers ready-to-use plugins that are updated frequently and significantly shorten the way to creating native applications.
One of the most prominent communities in Israel is “Flutter Israel”, which also operates a dedicated website, a Facebook page, and a YouTube channel. In addition, of course, you can find the original Flutter from Google on the flutter.dev website, including a YouTube channel with tutorials and explanations, alongside another community on GitHub.
