What’s next for Flutter in 2023

Flutter is a rapidly growing mobile app development framework. If you hire Flutter developers then they will  build high-performance, beautiful, and natively compiled apps for mobile, web, and desktop with a single codebase.

Looking into the future, Flutter is poised to make significant progress and here are some of the notable updates:

  1. Flutter 2.0 – This version of Flutter was released in March 2021 and comes with a range of features that improve the overall performance of the framework. Flutter 2.0 includes enhanced support for web development, improved debugging tools, and more.
  2. Desktop and Web support – Flutter is expanding its reach beyond mobile and has been making steady progress in desktop and web development. Flutter 2.0 also includes stable support for desktop platforms like Windows, macOS, and Linux.
  3. Flutter for Embedded devices – Flutter is being used to build applications for embedded devices such as smart home appliances, wearables, and more. With its lightweight architecture and support for hardware acceleration, Flutter is well-suited for embedded development.
  4. Integration with other technologies – Flutter is increasingly being used in conjunction with other technologies such as Firebase for backend services, AR/VR tools like Unity, and machine learning frameworks like TensorFlow.

Impeller, the next-generation graphics engine from Flutter, uses native graphics primitives like Metal and Vulkan to improve graphics performance. Additionally, it effectively utilizes concurrency by dividing single-frame workloads across threads, sometimes leading to dramatically improved performance. The next feature is 3D support, which includes the capacity to import Blender models.

On the web, Google is showcasing a brand-new functionality called element embedding that enables the addition of Flutter content to any typical web  <div> tag. By connecting with the website’s document object model (DOM) and becoming embedded in this way, Flutter becomes simply another web component, allowing the parent Flutter object to be styled using CSS selectors and transformations. In a proof-of-concept demonstration, Sneath exhibited a straightforward Flutter programme that was integrated into an HTML web page.

Additionally, Google is developing a fresh approach to integrating with native OS libraries. Future versions of Flutter for iOS will also support C libraries in addition to Swift and Objective-C libraries. Additionally, Flutter will connect to the Kotlin-written Jetpack libraries on Android using the Java Native Interface (JNI).

WebAssembly, which expands web development beyond JavaScript, and RISC-V, an open standard instruction set architecture (ISA) that will also be supported on Android, are two additional platforms that Flutter will support in the near future. Flutter currently supports RISC-V thanks to the Dart programming language, and it will work with RISC-V hardware as it becomes available.

Regarding the developer experience, Google is developing some significant new features for the Dart language, such as support for records and patterns. Additionally, Dart 3, which is in development, updates the language by removing out-of-date features. Additionally, a news toolkit for Flutter will make it easier for news publishers and other content creators to reach mobile users without having to start from scratch with an app.

Graphics performance that is exclusive

Impeller is a new Flutter rendering runtime. To avoid compiling shaders while an app is running, Impeller precompiled a smaller, simpler set of shaders at Engine build time.

Modern hardware-accelerated graphics APIs like Metal on iOS and Vulkan on Android are fully utilized by Impeller, a custom runtime. It is a huge redesign of a core element of the Flutter engine, replacing the existing Skia code with a custom runtime that takes full advantage of modern hardware-accelerated graphics APIs like Vulkan and Metal on Android and iOS. This allows for better animations while also eliminating a typical source of “yank” – stuttering animations and transitions.

In short, it delivers silky-smooth animations, that will significantly lifts the bar for what applications may anticipate from a cross-platform UI toolkit.

Apps that employ Impeller can anticipate to push boundaries further than ever before while remaining constrained to 60Hz or faster refresh rates. Impeller, in particular, eliminates the requirement for runtime shader compilation, which is a significant source of ‘jank’ in apps today.

Overall, Impeller has the following objectives:

  • Predictable Performance: At build time, all shader compilation and reflection is done offline. All pipeline state objects are built upfront. The engine has explicit control over and manages caching.
  • Instrumentable: Textures, buffers, pipeline state objects, and other graphics resources are all tagged and labeled. Animations can be recorded and stored on disc without compromising the speed of rendering individual frames.
  • Portable: Not dependent on any one client rendering API. Shaders are created once and then transformed as needed to backend-specific forms.
  • Uses Modern Graphics APIs Effectively: It utilizes (but does not rely upon) modern API features like Metal and Vulkan.
  • Makes Effective Use of Concurrency: Able to split up single-frame work among several threads as needed.

Web and mobile integration that is seamless

While you can write an app entirely in Flutter and Dart, almost any non-trivial project requires the use of other code. On the web, Flutter can be used as an embedded part of a larger programme; on mobile, apps might need to use system APIs or other code written in a different language. Therefore, flawless web and mobile integration is our second main investment goal.

We’re previewing a new feature called element embedding on the web, which allows Flutter content to be inserted to any normal web div>. When integrated in this manner, Flutter simply becomes a web component, integrating seamlessly with the web DOM and even allowing the parent Flutter object to be styled using CSS selectors and transforms.

We’re also implementing significant improvements to the js package to allow for smooth compatibility of JavaScript and Dart programming. With js, you can use the @JSExport attribute to annotate any function in your Dart code and then call it from your JavaScript code.

Continuing emphasis on developer experience

Everything we’ve discussed thus far is built around developer productivity, which has been a hallmark of Flutter from its conception, with features like stateful hot reload. Our fourth and final area of future investment will be a continuous emphasis on developer experience across both Flutter and Dart.

At Flutter Forward, we’re giving an exclusive look at some of our early work on some significant new Dart language features that show our dedication to the language’s stylish progression. We now have early support for records and patterns in our development channel, two major improvements that pair incredibly nicely.

Flutter Forward is showing some of our early work on several key new Dart language features that we believe will illustrate our dedication to the language’s elegant progression. We now have early support for records and patterns in our development channel, two new features that perform exceptionally well together.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Flutter’s next steps involve enhancing its capabilities and addressing the needs of developers and businesses. This includes improving performance, expanding its widget catalog, enhancing integration with native platforms, and providing better tools and resources for developers. Additionally, Flutter mobile app development  is likely to continue expanding its presence in various domains, including mobile, web, desktop, and embedded systems, making it an increasingly versatile framework for building beautiful and responsive user interfaces.

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