So, in this era of growing automation, where the most used hand
handled device a.k.a smartphone is just not a mere device used for
calling anymore, the “Smart” prefix is used because of its highly
advanced capabilities making one’s life easier by providing day-to-day
activities in one place.
According to statista.com, the number of smartphone users worldwide is approx. 3.5 Billion as of 2020 and is forecasted to grow to 3.8 Billion by 2021. Now you can imagine the widespread use of smartphones and
how it is only meant to increase day by day. This enormous smartphone population is majorly dominated by two operating systems in the market, namely Android and iOS, and Android proving to be more dominating out of
both in the market. The duo accounting for 99% of the active
smartphones in the world wherein 2020 Android and iOS held a
market share of 74.3% and 24.76% respectively.
Where does Flutter come in between all this?
Okay, now imagine two different operating systems leading the
smartphone industry having different architecture, a different way of
working, a different way of building. From a developers point of view,
earlier there’s suppose be two different sets of developers, with different
programming knowledge which develops for either one of the OS. The
native apps are created specifically to be run on the target platform with
the support of all the native technologies and other hardware
components such as camera and calendar but they have some cons. With
the introduction of cross-platform app development the cons of the
native app development could be removed. In this, after writing the
application’s code, it can be deployed on different devices and platforms
without worrying about incompatibility issues with the advantages like:
- Affordable and time saver
- Easy and fast development
- Wider audience reach
Various cross-platform app development frameworks are:
Appcelerator, PhoneGap, Kony, Xamarin, Sencha Ext Js, MonoCross,
AdobeBuild, React Native, Flutter.
What is Flutter?
Flutter is a mobile SDK for building high
apps for iOS and Android, from a single codebase
But wait, whenever one speaks about Flutter the one question that comes across the mind of someone not so familiar with it is, “Are you sure?
Bcoz that’s not even public”, the questions about its presence, about its consideration and if that it is then they are worth a thought because Flutter is like a newborn baby into the cross-platform app development framework but maintained by Google; a product of Google with some promising capabilities promoted with a tagline that Google uses to define it, “Build native apps in record time”.
Why use Flutter?
Before jumping onto the points stating out the features and advantages
of the Flutter, let’s talk about the previously existing methodology like
- Native platform based SDKs
Like, Apple iOS SDK and Google AndroidSDKwhich using two different languages Objective-C/Swift and Java/Kotlin, respectively. Both SDKs are platform-dependent and have their own programming languages, so a developer either should know both the languages and even then they have to code individually or should miss out on the opportunity and just work for either one of the platforms.
On the other hand, Flutter being cross-platform framework deals with the concept of the individuality and helps writing a single code in a language called Dart that can be used to create an app for both the operating system thus saving the time of developers and not to miss the opportunity by being dedicated to a single platform.
- WebViews
Then came the cross-platform frameworks to deal with the cons of native frameworks but those cross-platform frameworks such as PhoneGap, Ionic, etc were merely based on Javascript and WebView.
App using WebViews creates HTML and then displays it in a WebView on the platform and using the JavaScript bridge it is difficult for languages to talk directly to native code. - Reactive Views
So to deal with the drawbacks of WebViews Reactive web frameworks like ReactJS came in use which provides the simplified WebView through the use of reactive programming.
This doesn’t use the concept of WebViews and instead uses a JavaScript bridge to access the native widgets which can cause performance issues as widgets are typically accessed frequently. On the other hand, Flutter also provides reactive style views but makes the use of complied programming language namely Dart to avoid the performance issues caused by the JavaScript bridge.
Flutter vs Other Hybrid Technologies
Flutter vs Xamarin:
- The tussle of programming languages:
Xamarin uses C# which is one of the popular programming languages among the developers and if you’re familiar with it then you can straightaway start using Xamarin. But Flutter uses Dart language though relatively new but if you’re familiar with the concepts of OOPs languages such as Java, C++ then learning Dart isn’t much of a trouble. In fact, dart has many capabilities like:
- It can be trans-complied to javascript using the dart2js compiler.
- Dart also supports both AOT and JIT compilation which makes the processing faster.
- Even though C# is one of the top popular languages on GitHub but Dart
- Community Support
Xamarin has been in the field for long now and thus have a larger community, which comprises of experienced and willing to share knowledge developers. On Xamarin forums, committed developers share their code and experience, helping each other out. The platform is also supported by Microsoft which keeps updating its documentation from time to time. On the other side, though Flutter is the new age framework introduced its stable version in 2018, it had a limited community at its early stages but with time its community has upsurged abruptly, the Twitter community is approx 80k+ while that of Xamarin is 70k+ followers, the Reddit community is approx 30k+ followers and 88k+ stars on Github, the community has challenged their rivals in less time.
Flutter vs React Native:
- The tussle of programming languages:
The comparison among the programming languages is inevitable when comparing two different frameworks to marks one’s processing. React Native supports various languages like JavaScript (dynamically typed), Typescript and JS with flow. While Flutter supports Dart which is a newly introduced language based on the concept of OOPs so it won’t be a hassle to work across it.
- Community Support
React Native has been in the field since 2015 and Flutter released the first stable version in 2018 yet Flutter has surpassed React on Github with Flutter at 88k+ stars and React at 85k+ stars which itself tells you about the take of the developers regarding the both. React which is considered on the best Cross-Platforms is facing challenges from Flutter.
What do the stats say?
This is the data from the last 12months and the curiosity about flutter has been surging in the developers’ minds all around the world.
Advantages of Flutter:
Fast development
- Flutter uses a Hot Reload feature which makes the app
development more dynamic and faster. - Suppose you have to make some changes like add
features, fix bugs, to the code and want those changes to
be implemented instantly, Hot Reload is what makes it
happen in flutter where the changes are added in
milliseconds. - This Hot Reload feature comes way handy in the developer-
designer/tester relationship, where the latter can work together with the developer on UI, making changes.
Beautiful, vivid UIs
Flutter has a rich set of Material design and Cupertino
widgets which help to build customized, beautiful designs
without the limitations of OEM widgets.
Native performance
Flutter widgets incorporate all the indifferences of both the
native platforms, iOS, and Android such as scrolling,
navigation, icons, and fonts which provide native performances
on both.
Productivity
Flutter provides high productivity by developing apps for both
iOS and Android just by using a single codebase. The
developers just have to write the code once and that single
code will be able to build apps for both platforms.
Flutter for all
Flutter, started as the cross-platform development tool specifically focusing on the apps on the smartphone but that wasn’t it’s limit, Flutter for web was introduced with Flutter v1.12 as a beta version, which is basically web apps using Flutter. Also, Flutter is like the first-class citizen of Fuschia OS. Now, you can also build apps for MacOS, flutter enabled support for MacOS in the dev channel as of 1.13.
Various Programming Standards
- Concurrent programming
Flutter makes abundant use of asynchronous functions such as Futures to do task parallelly. For example, To report when an image is loaded, futures are used on the basis of whether a future has been completed or not. - Composition
Since everything in Flutter is a widget and when I say everything it means everything. Flutter makes efficient use of composition in its widgets creation, its composes objects with a limited behavioral span to make a complex widget. For example, - Generic Programming
“types-to-be-specified-later” seems less hectic in programming, Flutter follows the same paradigm throughout its structure. For example, the state class takes a parameterized widget type. - Reactive Programming
In Flutter, the widget and the element trees are reactive in nature. Reactive in the sense that any changes in the state are immediately propagated down the widget tree using the build method and are also propagated back up the widget tree using the event handlers.
With the increase in curiosity in the developer community, an increase in popularity in the GitHub, the fact it’s being backed by the upsurging and established tech giant Google and looking at its various advantages you can definitely look it up for building a cross-platform app. The only major competitor you might have in mind might be ReactNative but taking in the time/popularity ratio into consideration, I think Flutter should be your go.
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