Flutter 2 has been finally launched and its beautiful, fast, productive and open. Today we will discuss about Top 10 things about Flutter Engage to know.
Since Flutter 2 is being expanded to a portable framework, unleashing your apps to run a wide variety of different platforms with little or no change. You can think of Flutter 2 as a free upgrade for your app.
With Flutter 2, your app can target four additional platforms– Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and the web. We asked our friends at gskinner to create a demo app that spans all these platforms.
1. Multiple Platform Support with One Code Base.
We decided to build a scrapbooking app called Flutter Folio. So I’d like to invite you to visit flutter.gskinner.com, where you’ll find more info, source code, and links to the app. Ultimately, we were able to build an app that runs great and feels at home on three form factors, five OSs, and the web while reusing over 95% of our code.
2. Google Pay is completely Rewritten in Flutter.
Flutter isn’t just being used outside Google. Over a thousand engineers inside the company are using Dart and Flutter to develop apps today. One of the largest apps from Google using Flutter is Google Pay.
PEEYUSH RANJAN: We decided to rewrite everything. We ended up with a 35% smaller codebase–1.1 million lines compared to 1.7 million lines. And at the same time, our tech debt went down by 90% on a per engineer basis. Now, once the rewrite was done, we also found that our engineers were 20% more productive in terms of features implemented because of the rewrite.
We were able to take the iOS engineers and Android engineers and get 50% engineering efficiency immediately because they were all working on the same thing.
3. Microsoft Providing Foldables support to Flutter.
TIM SNEATH: Phones come in so many different shapes and sizes. And one of the latest trends is foldable phones. One great example of this form factor is the Surface Duo from Microsoft.
GUY MERIN: Today, we’re happy to announce that we are collaborating with Google and bringing foldable support to Flutter. We’re contributing code to enable Flutter apps to take advantage of these new opportunities with devices like the Surface Duo, but also enable it on other devices from manufacturers like Samsung and others.
4. Flutter Web Support.
TIM SNEATH: So let’s talk about portability. Today, we’re delighted to announce that Flutter support for the web platform has hit the Stable milestone. DION ALMAER: Now, the web has many strengths, including ubiquity and reach.
So if you’re building a Flutter app, you now get to reach users outside of app stores. And with the power of URLs, users across operating systems or device types could be directed to any part of your app, from links that are shared by friends, clicked on in search, from an email, from anywhere.
5. iRobot building multiplatform with Flutter.
TIM SNEATH: I want to show you one example of the kind of app that shines really well on the web. iRobot is the company behind the popular Roomba robot vacuums. But they also have coding robots that empower the next generation of innovators.
iRobot built their app with Flutter. And today, they’re launching the web version of their experience. So here, you can see the app running in the browser using the same code as their tablet app.
6. Flutter is Cononical’s default Choice.
Today, we’re delighted to announce that we’re also opening up desktop to the stable channel of Flutter, enabled
with an early release flag. This release lets you produce standalone executables for each platform– Mac OS, Linux, and Windows. On Linux, Canonical has been a fantastic partner.
KEN VANDINE: We not only enabled Flutter for Linux, but we also worked with the Flutter team to publish the Flutter SDK as a snap in the Snap Store, the app store for Linux. By publishing the Flutter SDK as a snap, we’ve made it very easy to install and set up your development environment to build mobile, web, and desktop apps with Flutter on Ubuntu. Flutter is the default choice for future desktop and mobile apps created by Canonical.
7. Flutter Powered Toyota infotainment systems.
TIM SNEATH: There are even more screens out there beyond the kind of operating system that you might have on your phone or your PC. Toyota are building Flutter right into the heart of their core product.
DANIEL HALL: Today, we’re excited to announce that Toyota is partnering with Flutter to bring a best-in-market digital experience to vehicles by building infotainment systems powered by Flutter. We see working with open-source software as a positive investment towards our in-vehicle user experiences, and we look forward to playing a role in the open-source Flutter community.
8. Sound Null Safety in Dart.
TIM SNEATH: Let’s now go one level deeper and talk about Dart. BOB NYSTROM: I’m very happy to tell you that we have shipped Null Safety for Dart. So now the type system helps you eliminate null reference bugs. This is the biggest change to Dart since we added sound static types in Dart 2.
With Null Safety, we didn’t just add non-nullable types to the type system, we also added a slew of features like smarter flow analysis, late variables, and required named parameters so that your Dart code isn’t just safe, but easy to write.
Dart gives you more than most other languages with non-nullable types, too. Null safety in Dart is sound. That means that when your program is fully migrated, the type system guarantees, like mathematical proof, that no non-nullable expression can ever evaluate to null.
A fast language is no use if you can’t productively write code in it. So next, Kenzie’s going to talk about developer tools. KENZIE SCHMOLL: Now, I know what you’re thinking. Framework improvements are great and bring all sorts of new and improved functionality to you.
But usually, they also come with some breaking changes to your code. Well, fear not, because what we’ve also done as part of Flutter 2 is created a tool called Flutter Fix.
9. Upgraded Firebase plugins for Flutter.
As of right now, there are over 15,000 packages for Flutter and Dart from big companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Adobe, Huawei, Alibaba, eBay, and Square.
We’re also today announcing a major update to our Flutter plugins for several core Firebase services– authentication, cloud Firestore, cloud functions, cloud messaging, cloud storage, and crashlytics. We’ve updated all these packages to support sound null safety.
10. Google Mobile Ads SDK for Flutter.
But there’s another major package we’re releasing today. ZOEY FAN: We’re excited to announce an open beta for the Google Mobile Ads SDK for Flutter. This is a brand new plugin that provides inline banner and native ads, in addition to the existing overlay formats.
We’ve been piloting this plugin with some of our early customers in a private beta program. Sua Musica is one of them. We’ve had amazing metrics, showing an increase in performance since we made the change.
We saw a 350% increase on impressions, we have a 43% increase on CTR, and 13% increase on our eCPM. The Google Mobile Ads SDK for Flutter is available today for you to download from pub.dev.
Flutter is the first UI platform that is designed for an ambient computing world. And this vision is unique to Flutter, a portable toolkit for building beautiful, native, fast experiences wherever you might want to paint pixels on the screen.
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