This is the age of mobile apps. An app is being developed or has been developed for virtually every human function from diet tracking to note-taking to app creation. While developers want to create apps for both iOS and Android to provide a native user experience, with iOS and the App Store as their target audience, they don’t want to lose Android’s heavy users. This is where cross-platform app development comes in handy. It helps in creating an app for different types of platforms at once.
Flutter – A Practical Cross-Platform Framework
Flutter is an open-source mobile application framework developed by Google for all iOS application developers who want to work on cross-platform applications, but not compromise the quality of the developed application, which is mostly the case with cross-platform development.
Why Choose Cross-Platform App Development Over Native Development?
1. Saves Time:
By using the same core code to develop iOS mobile apps for a myriad of mobile platforms, you save developers valuable time by not having to write the same functionality in a different language and for a different platform. Cross-platform development has a shorter time-to-market, enabling faster application delivery.
2. Shorter Test Period:
Because the underlying code of the application is the same, test developers must test the application on different devices on the same platform. The QA team only needs to test one version of the app. This cuts the time to test the application by more than half, saving a lot of time for the test developers.
3. Low Price:
Time is money. While you save a lot of time in developing and testing an iOS mobile app, and with a single code base, you can save a lot of money and thus production costs.
4. Wide Reach:
A cross-platform mobile app gives the app a wider reach compared to native apps as it reaches a wider number of users across a range of IOS platforms.
Why Should You Choose Flutter For IOS Mobile App Development?
The obvious answer to this question is that it is a cross-platform application framework and you have already seen a huge number of advantages above. But why choose Flutter when there are several cross-platform mobile app development frameworks available in the market? Flutter is very efficient and for the same reason, it has gained popularity in the iOS app development community. There are various other reasons why developers choose Flutter over others, such as:
1. High Speed:
Flutter has given new life to the concept of rapid mobile app development. Several other cross-platform development networks use different compilers to compile code for different IOS platforms. Flutter uses the dynamic scripting Dart programming language to compile and interpret code. The Dart programming language compiles application code to native operating system code. This improves loading and thereby increases the pace of application programming.
2. Customized User Interface:
Flutter does not use native components of the OS platform to create the user interface like other cross-platform frameworks. It is highly capable of creating a user interface that can be used on multiple OS platforms. Various other cross-platform frameworks are partial to UI rendering by omitting certain features and components. Flutter is different in this regard. It renders the application for all OSes as it was created and intended.
3. Embedded Testing:
One of the biggest advantages that Flutter offers is its built-in testing functionality. It uses Dart, which is capable of supporting unit and widget testing. Unit testing is used to test business logic and widget testing is to test user interface functionality. Flutter thus eliminates the need to add additional tools and plugins for testing.
4. Continuous Delivery And Integration:
Apple places a strong emphasis on continuous delivery and integration. So Apple used Xcode Server for the same. Several iOS developers complained that Xcode Server was not scalable enough for large projects and was not efficient. This is where Flutter weaves its magic with high scalability along with faster integration and delivery.
5. Increase in Productivity:
High productivity is one of the key factors in increasing performance in business. Flutter does not require the programmer to recompile the code every time changes are made. The change is visible immediately after it is saved. This greatly increases developer performance. Flutter does not require Gradle, which is used to develop iOS mobile apps and is notorious for slowing down the development cycle. Flutter connects designers and developers and facilitates easy collaboration.
6. Help With CDs:
Google Flutter has now partnered with Code Never to provide the Codemagic CI/CD solution. Codemagic is a CD solution that can develop, detect, test, and package applications built with Flutter without the need for any configuration. This increases the scalability of the application and enables rapid integration for large applications.
Wrapping Up
Since Flutter is relatively new to the iOS app development world, there is still a lot of room for its development and feature enhancements, but it’s huge for startups. Higher performance, easy integration, fast app creation, great user interface, and reduced cost are some of the features that attract iOS mobile app development startups to it. And Flutter never disappoints and that’s its biggest strength. The robustness, versatility, and efficiency offered by Flutter make it a winner in the developing world regardless of its time on the market.
Tags: iosiOS app developmentMobile apps