Flutter for Web - Bright Future of Cross-Platform Development

One of the jaw-dropping announcements was the newest feature of the cross-platform development framework, Flutter.

Welcome: Flutter for Web

According to the announcement, from now on, Flutter will allow developers to build true multi-platform apps that work across every digital platform: Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, and even web browsers. This new approach has a huge potential of revolutionizing the approach to building modern consumer-oriented applications.

The Holy Grail of cross-platform development is to build an app once and run it wherever your users can interact with your product. It’s not fully possible with React Native (currently the most popular mobile cross-platform framework), Kotlin Multiplatform, Ionic, or Xamarin because of the complexity of porting the application. Thanks to its newest feature, Flutter may become the perfect tool for building user interfaces.

From the beginning, Google promised that Flutter will be a top-performance, reliable UI framework, and I think the time has come to fulfil the promise. Presenting a new version of Kenken puzzle by the New York Times proved it's not just wishful thinking anymore: .

Additionally, at Netguru’s R&D department, we are researching a new tool called Supernova Studio. Its aim is to translate Sketch designs directly into Flutter widgets. After the first tests, I can tell you that it’s super promising. Especially, when you imagine the flow of prototyping new apps with it:

1. a designer creates UI designs in Sketch;
2. a Sketch file is translated into Flutter code by Supernova;
3. a developer gets the generated code and adds the logic to the UI layer;
4. you end up with an app that you can ship on Android, iOS and Web within days instead of months.

The whole idea looks very interesting and may surprise our industry with a totally new approach to building digital products, because today, developers still need to fully implement the UI delivered by designers.

Conclusion

I can’t wait to test out the new approach offered by Flutter. At Netguru, we started working with cross-platform development back in 2016, and since then, we’ve helped a lot of businesses to grow their mobile products. We’ve helped develop the award-winning Shine app for self-care and meditation, the secret child of Asana and Trello – the management app Hive, and a real-time translation app for travellers – Whym. If we could bring these ideas to every digital platform with just a single app, who knows what their future would look like?

If you’re looking for any recommendations or support with mobile development – be it native iOS, Flutter, or React Native – just get in touch with our team or let’s connect on LinkedIn.

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Headline photo by: Maurizio Pesce