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If you are thinking about hiring a mobile app developer, hire a Flutter app developer. There are plenty of benefits of Flutter app development, especially to startups and entrepreneurs. And that is the reason Google has unveiled Flutter 1.2 at MWC19.
Flutter 1.2
All of us know that Google launched Flutter back in May 2017 and now it’s nearly two years old with version Flutter 1.2. In the tech world, a new generation comes every 18 months, so it’s about time to review what has changed in Flutter 1.2. Recently, during the #MWC19 (i.e. Mobile World Congress 2019), Google launched the stable version Flutter 1.2 with plenty of updates and new features.
History Repeats Itself
Facebook and Instagram have developed their own open-source and cross-platform framework called React Native in 2015. So, comparatively, React Native was a little ahead in terms of framework stability and maturity. But Google has a stupendous record for ‘slow but steady wins the race’.
Apple launched iOS in 2007 whereas Google launched Android in 2008. At present, more than 60% of smartphones use Android. There was one time when Internet Explorer from Microsoft used to rule the online world with approximately 90% of market share. Now, Google Chrome rules the online world with a lion share. So, the developer community believes that the same thing is going to happen when it comes to React Native vs Flutter or any cross-platform mobile app development SDKs, as a matter of fact.
That’s the reason mobile app developers were all gung ho when Google launched Flutter 1.2 with new features.
What’s New In Flutter 1.2?
As Flutter 1.2 is a framework for developers, it must have added new features for developers. It has, in fact, added many features in this version.
New & Updated Plugins
There are quite a few new and updated plugins in Flutter 1.2. That is the reason this app development framework is better than the most. Now mobile app developers can integrate in-app purchases easily in their Flutter mobile apps. All the plugins will most definitely make the life of app developers easy.
Android App Bundles
There was a huge cry for this feature from the developer community. So Google has also introduced Android App Bundles in Flutter 1.2 version. Android App Bundles can dramatically reduce the initial install size of the mobile app. It will also enable developers for dynamic delivery.
New & Updated Widgets
Google has updated Cupertino and Material widgets to offer pixel-perfect mobile apps to its users. Plenty of motions and animations are also now part of Flutter 1.2 version. Flutter now offers many iOS UI elements like text cursor and floating text cursor. So, Flutter mobile apps will look and behave more like a native app in iOS too.
Dart 2.2
Although there are multiple ways of writing in Flutter, programming language Dart is the most popular way to do so. Google has developed Dart in their backyard and Flutter works the best with Dart. Along with Flutter 1.2, Google also released Dart 2.2 with it. There are plenty of updates and changes in Dart 2.2 as well.
The first thing that will make all the developers happy is the performance boost of 15 to 20%. Yes, you heard me right. Dart 2.2 promises a performance boost of 15 to 20% over the previous versions.
Dart 2.2 has also added the functionality of Set literals with curly braces { }. This functionality is already present in other coding languages like Python and Java so developers will feel at home in Dart 2.2 now. It will help them set a constant. You can try it here on DartPad web app.
Dart DevTools
Despite these updates and news features in Flutter 1.2 and Dart 2.2, what interested Flutter app developers the most is Dart DevTools. Dart DevTools is essentially a web-based programming suit of app development and performance tools for Flutter and Dart. It means that developers can run all these tools in the Google Chrome browser. Dart DevTools primary focuses is on the process of analyzing and debugging the complete code of the mobile app. It makes the job of Flutter app developers really easy. They don’t need to install and run heavy IDEs, at least not for analysis and debugging.
The Dart DevTools suit provides most of the features and functionalities of Android Studio and Visual Studio Code. At present, it cannot completely replace them but eventually, it will. At least that seems to be the endgame of Google. They want to move everything online.
Dart DevTools offers a Timeline View. Using this view, Flutter app developers can go through every code changes to identify a bug and solve a problem.
In addition to the Timeline View, It also offers a Logging View. This view displays all the logging activities of a developer and other collection events.
It also offers a source-level debugger so that developers can step through their programming codes. They can also set as many breakpoints as they want when they want to investigate a complete call stack.
Widget Inspector is also an important part of this update. It improves the visualization besides enabling the tree hierarchy. The framework uses a tree hierarchy for rendering.
Final Thoughts
We are living in interesting times when everything is going online and in the cloud. Now is the time for mobile app development to go online and in the cloud. It is not possible yet but Dart DevTools is a step in that direction. Flutter 1.2 and Dart 2.2 releases are equally interesting updates for Flutter app developers. It’s like their cloud dreams are finally coming true bit by bit.
iCoderz Solutions is a full stack mobile app development company and web development company. We have dedicated teams for iOS app development, Android app development, cross-platform Flutter app development and web development. You can hire a Flutter developer or a dedicated team of cross-platform Flutter developers that will exclusively work on your project. Our experienced and dedicated developers have developed 400+ native mobile apps and cross-platform mobile apps in total. If we add 100+ web development projects in that tally, our project list ends up in the North of 500 with a global clientele of 300+ happy clients. If you are thinking about cross-platform Flutter web development, look no further.
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