FLUTTER 2- A Leap into the Future

The major announcement of the Flutter 2 launch was made on March 3rd, 2021, by the Google Developers. It was significant in the sense that the upgrades were many over the previous version.

It enabled the developers to work almost on any platform and, in the process, create and build apps that are more fast, portable, and beautiful. The advantage was that it was a common codebase, and apps can be shifted without any issues and made workable on the top five operating systems.

The operating systems were:

• Windows

• Android

• IOS

• Linux

• MacOS.

You can use it to target top browsers such as Edge, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. As far as portability was concerned, it could easily be embedded in Television, Cars, Smart Home Appliances, thus making its presence felt and an experience in the world of computers.  

It was to introduce a new mindset, especially the Developers' perspective. The 360-degree change Flutter 2 brings around is the experience that has to be created and not the platform itself. In this process, the design is found at the forefront, and branding also occupies an important position.

The advantages of Flutter 2 

• It is the fastest in compiling the source code to machine codes.

• And It enables you to make changes with the application still running.

• It permits you to see the results of such changes in real-time.

• It is open-ended, thus allowing for many contributors who can enhance the core framework.

• Flutter is not confined to a mobile framework but also available on a portable one. This helps your apps to run on various platforms with no changes.

• There are PWA's which Integrate well with the user (like Twitter), and their quality stands enhanced. These enhancements include offline support, installation, and the tailored UX.

• The web support provided by Flutter to complex standalone apps makes it easy to reach various users on an unrestricted number of devices.

Flutter & the Web:

There is no difference in his Flutter performance on the web compared to the mobile. With the additional flexibility of Flutter and its combination with the web platform's power-building new applications for Android and iOS, the browser is also of the same codebase.

It brings with it many new and exciting additions. They are :

• Web:

It has helped to leverage web platforms' strength and has thus created a base for interactions between web applications.

• Sound Null Safety:

It is essential to distinguish between nullable and non - nullable types. Dart language has an add-on through Sound Null Safety. Apps generally crash as there are null errors, but with Sound Null Safety, this is preventable.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• Code writing is faster

• Testing is lesser

• Apps work faster

• Similar code / single code for two platforms

• User lovable designs.

Cons:

• Non- availability of certain functionalities

• As on date, Flutter is not supported by a few CI platforms.

Conclusion:

The advantages of Flutter 2 outweigh the disadvantages. It presents an excellent opportunity for high performance and is capable of satisfying your custom requirements.

Google has Unveiled Flutter 1.0

Google unveiled the Flutter 1.0 at an event at the Science Museum in London, UK. The Product Manager Tim Sneath introduced Flutter 1.0 to the enthusiastic developers.

What is Flutter? 

Flutter 1.0 is a cross-platform portable UI toolkit. It is an app engine that brings software development kit (SDK) out of beta.

Since 2015, it was undergoing various stages of development. Several of the beta versions were out last year and a preview of Flutter saw the release this summer.

It allows developers to build apps that can work on Android and iOS from a single codebase.

Flutter was designed by Google so that there could be a better collaboration and rapid development between the developers and coders. It is powered by Skia 2D graphics engine.

Material Design widgets which would look nice on both, Android and iPhone devices, will be powered by Google’s Dart platform. It will enable compilation to native 32-bit and 64-bit ARM code for Android and iOS. With the ‘stateful hot reload’ feature, you get quick visual results without any need to restart, thus saving time and increasing productivity. According to Google, the development cycles are three times more productive.

Flutter, being an open source, with a BSD-style licence, allows contributions from developers all over, since there are plenty of third-party plug-ins and widgets ready to be tried out.

Ashley Narayanen told Computer Business Review that even though it has the ability to target more than one platform which is not a new concept, the others being Xamarin, Cordova and React Native, it is a product of Google and not a third party component.

The other point to be noted is that Flutter is slated to be the main framework for the next-Gen operating system, Fuschia.

Though the Xamarin framework offers a native experience, there are still problems in cross-platform targeting since a complete 100 percent of the components cannot be used across both the Android and iOS platforms.

It has been designed to support Google’s ‘Material’ design language as well. Since there is heavy use of shadows and other effects, one can use the native hardware graphics acceleration on both the Android and iOS platforms. With the result it is capable of handling such workloads.

Many Big Companies are using Flutter

Big companies like Alibaba, Groupon, Tencent and others are developing and shipping apps with Flutter.

The mobile payment service Square announced two new Flutter SDKs whereby accepting payments for goods and services would become easier with Flutter. It could be done by using a Square payment reader or payments within the mobile app developed on the platform.

Animators 2Dimensions announced the use of ‘Flare’, a tool that enables designers to create animations which could be embedded into a Flutter app and manipulated with code. With Flare, there is no need to design in one app, animate in another and convert everything to a device-specific assets and code.

With Flutter, app design is radically simplified. Google made an announcement that they would be experimenting with running Flutter on the web under the codename, Hummingbird.

Motion detection Start up “Flutter” acquire by Google

“The Flutter” California startup has developed a technology with gestures to control popular applications like YouTube and Netflix through a webcam. This technology is now owned by Google. The gesture recognition or movements can be decoded by the computer. Microsoft already uses this technology for its gaming console via the Kinect sensor.

But this area have a greater technology hence Google also have much interest in this. The Web giant has acquired Flutter for an undisclosed sum. The latter has developed gesture recognition technology to control popular applications using gestures. These are captured by a webcam and then interpreted by the software.

Among compatible with the Flutter technology that can supported on Mac and Windows applications, including Pandora account, Grooveshark, Netflix and YouTube and also in Google video platform. With this acquisition, Google could push the development of Flutter towards including Chrome and Android. This is not currently speculation as Google, nor the management team Flutter, has wanted to discuss the future of these technologies in the Mountain View Company and its products.