2 million on Apple iTunes. 3.8 Million on Android Play Store. The world of mobile apps is way too big than what we can imagine. Well, an average user installs more than 80 apps on his/her smartphone. So, how does the mobile app that you painstakingly build and launch create a splash among a million others?
I, for one, has been someone who always voted for the ‘Native development’ approach. The inconsistencies in tooling, the ugly UIs, the performance issues — I had several reasons to shake my head against cross-platform app development.
But, native app development was proving to be too expensive on the overhead front. It took 3x more time to create designs on separate native platforms. Bringing all the development teams under one page and creating a consistent experience across all the platforms was not easy. And, QA took forever as each the apps had to be tested literally thrice for each platform.
Just when I thought I had hit a plateau in mobile app development, I came across this GitHub post that details how Awesome Flutter is. Truth be told, I was blown away.
Flutter is not any fad that became rage recently. It has been around since 2015 and has been gaining in popularity.
My Fascination with Flutter
Well, that was just the beginning of my fascination with Flutter. I dug deep into the technical overview of Flutter and found that it was nothing like the usual cross-platform programming languages or SDKs.
Flutter is a phenomenal mobile app SDK that helps build iOS and Android apps from a single codebase. Unlike their usual counterparts that are stripped down to their bare essentials for dry runs, apps built using Flutter are high on performance and have high-fidelity designs.
The good reasons I liked Flutter do not end there. I am so much impressed with the modern mobile app development SDK that I want to sit down and write this full blog listing its outstanding features.
1.The delightful UI Framework
Navigation is pretty straightforward and easier. The API is pretty easy to use and is highly customizable for mobile development. Rendering can be done using Skia and can be reused across Android and iOS.
2. The faster development cycle
A full compile on Flutter takes just 25 seconds. Full compile on Android takes 2.10 seconds while on iOS takes 2.40 seconds. An incremental compile gets over in a sub-second thanks to hot reloads.
3. One shot test completion
Flutter brings down the QA process time by 50%. It allows using iOS test cases for Android as well as web thus saving a huge amount of time required to create fresh ones. Also, these test cases work fine too.
4. Code reuse
Flutter lets you reuse 95% of the code base across Android and iOS and 60% across Flutter and the web. This is such a time-saver! If you have any major changes to do to the entire code, it needs to be done only once. The results can be instantly seen across all the platforms, thanks to Hot Reloads.
5. Scalability at will
Ever mobile app developer worth his/her salt knows that scalability of app resources is critical to scale mobile apps. That calls for more developers and system resources. Flutter, although hardly few years old, has a good developer base. You won’t face any problem finding resources to scale your mobile app. Further, Flutter also has a good knowledge sharing community from where the latest updates can be obtained.
Wrap-up
If not this blog, the only way to convince yourself of the fantastic app development SDK that Flutter is to use it. With Flutter, you will be equipped with the capability to design and launch mobile apps in quick time, two to three months maybe, if everything else is in the right place. Also, the code reuse means you spend less time recreating what has been created for other native platforms.
The test cases created for iOS can be easily replicated for android app development without much fuss. The end result? You save plenty of time. And Flutter can be quickly scaled. Thanks to the quickly growing Flutter development community as well as the many numbers of online materials, you will not feel lost when trying to build an app using Flutter.