Are you looking for options to develop an app in less time and cost with limited resources? Choosing a Flutter framework is the best option for anyone to develop an app quickly with high performance without compromising on quality. 

Flutter is an open-source mobile application development framework that is launched by Google in 2017 as an alternative to React Native. It is mostly written in Dart language. Languages like C, C++, and Skia Graphics Engine are also used to write flutters apps. 

In this article, let’s discuss the key reasons to use Flutter mobile app development and how it benefits your application development process during various phases.    

Key features of Flutter 

• * Flutter allows the developers to create a hybrid app (suit for both Android and iOS) in a single codebase. 

• * Flutter provides a highly reactive framework; you can modify any interface easily with simple changes. 

• * It offers a customized widget to build an attractive user interface. 

• * Flutter apps can be featured in both the App Store and Google Play Store. 

• * Hot reload makes the saving task easier by just hitting the refresh button. 

Why use Flutter for App Development? 

Flutter has many built-in functions to make the process of mobile app development easier for even new developers. Most of them prefer Flutter for their speed and simple development process to generate a new app. 

Flutter app runs in a Dart virtual machine that provides a just-in-time execution. It uses ahead-of-time for iOS to execute the code since the App Store restricts dynamic code execution. 

Dart platform which supports hot reload helps to add the modified source code directly into running application which will immediately reflect in a running app without losing any running state. 

Flutter library provides classes and functions that are needed to construct efficient apps. It helps APIs to communicate with the flutter engines. Flutter engine helps in hosting the Flutter apps. It’s written in C++, provides support for I/O, plugin support, animation and graphics and runtime for Dart. 

In Flutter, UI design can be made by assembling extensive collection of widgets. Widgets represent a user interface that includes graphics, text shapes, and animations. 

Other than this, Slivers and Gestures are two advanced user interfaces that are used for custom scrolling and pointer movement in the screen, respectively. 

For performance, Flutter can build and launch the application faster using hot reload option that makes the modification process easy. While Pub Package manager makes the dependency management more efficient. 

How Flutter benefits mobile app development 

Compared to other mobile app frameworks, Flutter offers various tools to perform testing. They provide a solid testing framework for developers to write testing at various levels. 

• * Dev tools: It’s a source-level debugger that inspects memory, timeline and logging view of the app. 

• * Flutter inspector: It checks your visual display and helps to enable the performance of the app. 

• * OEM debugger: It debugs your Dart program and outline of the application. 

During the launch, Flutter provides a pre-launch and crash report to check whether your app can be successfully launched or not. 

During installations, Flutter provides detailed guidance. Flutter doctor is an in-built tool that guides users to setup the flutter app. They analyze the local machine to configure the tools and guide the user during installation. 

Flutter App example - Xianyu by Alibaba 

Xianyu app is developed using the Flutter framework by the biggest ecommerce company Alibaba. It has more than 50M downloads. It is a mobile commerce app that sells and resells products online. 

• * Framework 

Alibaba used Flutter SDK framework for building the mobile application. Flutter SDK is a one-time setup which doesn't require any library support to run. It also provides an option to switch between a different command easily, which is the most needed requirement for Xianyu. 

• * Optimization 

Alibaba implemented user interface using OpenGL that helped to reduce CPU and GPU resources overhead. They also bridged the gap with external texture, which helps to reduce the computation time and memory consumption. 

• * Customization  

Even though Flutter has all the high functionalities, developers at Alibaba suffered from the missing of some basic capabilities. For this, they modified the Flutter framework to add extra functionalities during automatic recording playback. They used Aspect-Oriented Programming, which can dynamically insert the code during compile time without modifying the source code. 

• * Testing  

Xianyu developers tested the app in iOS and Android devices. Their testing was depended on CPU and memory. They used a core animation and ADB-based shell script to get FPS. 

For iOS, their testing models were iPhone 5c and iPhone 6S, a low-end and mid-end model respectively. For Android, a low-end and high-end model of Samsung phones were used for testing purpose. 

Choosing Flutter for developing apps  

Flutter is emerging as a popular choice for developing hybrid mobile apps as it offers huge benefits. They are suitable for developing apps that can be deployed as a native app with the same look and feel.  

There are many popular apps like Reflectly, Topline, InKino, Coach Yourself, and Hookle are already developed using this next-gen framework. So, are you ready to start your mobile app development using Flutter? Infinijith Technologies helps you build your dream mobile apps with its extensive experience in using cutting-edge technologies.