Google has developed an open-source mobile application SDK named Flutter. With the help of Flutter developers can use similar codebase for developing both Android and iOS applications. Since React Native framework is popular these days, Flutter can appear to be React Native at first. However, it progressively offers complete support of native features. This is the reason for big companies to use this stable platform for mobile application development. Let us see, how Flutter impacts the native iOS development and why choose flutter for ios development.
The native iOS development isn’t fascinating for each ios developer. There are some who have a baffling experience and are searching for something new. Flutter is for them. Take a look at the points and get to now how flutter is better than native ios development.
1. Technical Structure-
Flutter highly differentiates native iOS development in terms of technical architecture. All native ios development tools were developed by Apple whereas Google transparently built up its Flutter platform. Swift programming language is the single exception which you can discover on Apple’s Github. Google developed Dart programming language. Developers can use it to write mobile applications code for Flutter.
There is a difference regarding IDEs too. iOS Developers generally do native iOS development in the Xcode while the Android Studio, IntelliJ Idea, or a text editor like Atom or Sublime Text is used to develop Flutter applications. All native applications are developed natively using Swift, they are fast and slick. Dart has some wonderful features like powerful typing, generics, a rich library, and async-await effective application building. However, there is no need for Dart system to communicate with the native modules. Dart includes the tree shaking compiler that can record the necessary code for your application. You are going to use a rich library to choose and use widgets from. Also, everything you require for native application development is available in the Flutter platform.
2. Quick Development Concept-
Flutter isn’t a web technology but it has taken the quick development concept a step further. For example, using traditional compilers are difficult. Thus, you can use dynamic scripting languages for good performance of the compiled languages. You can choose Dart as a programming language as it includes a powerful system. Dart has two modes – interpreted and compiled modes. Its interpreted mode offers an incredible reload experience while its compiled mode helps in compiling an application down to native machine code when you are going to launch the application. The great features of Dart prove that it’s good for developing mobile applications and having a remarkable experience for Flutter.
3. UI factor-
UI development takes more time of the iOS developers. The native iOS system offers a UIKit that features complete native support for document, printing, drawing, and animation. It also has event-driven user interfaces. Flutter’s UI components are different. Flutter offers a widget concept to help developers for rapid development. Hence, you can create a tricky UI using such widgets. Also the widgets are stateless. Layout are not only pixel perfect but also support Cupertino for iOS and material design widget libraries for android.
4. Increased Productivity of Developers-
This is one of the most important benefits of Flutter open-source platform. Being a developer you must know how much productivity is significant when you have worked for an organization. Also, you can find a great change after using this platform. It helps to increase your productivity. There is no prerequisite of recompiling as you can observe the change immediately after saving it. This increased productivity originates from Google’s hot reload benefits. Flutter is not same as native iOS development as it doesn’t require Gradle tool to develop mobile apps. The progressive Hot Reload feature makes Flutter unique from other platforms. The amazingly quick and simple Hot Reload process interfaces designers and developers. It helps them in better collaboration to improve their application development.
5. Solid Testing Support-
XCTest is a native testing framework offered by Apple for UI testing of iOS applications. Native iOS applications with Swift are extraordinarily tested by this framework. It doesn’t include some features like snapshot tests, the grouping of tests, and data driven testing. With this framework, you won’t get any native support for mocking and stubbing and this turns out to be more difficult for developer with regards to UI testing. Apart from this, Flutter brings an extraordinary testing system to help developers for writing their tests at the UI level, functional and the unit. A great feature is Widget testing which helps in running UI tests rapidly. Flutter also includes fast documentation. Flutter accompanies an individual package named Flutter Driver for running these tests.
6. CI/CD Assistance-
Apple team provides the Xcode Server for native iOS applications. Likewise, developers can coordinate Fastlane and Jenkins just as other CI/CD systems. Flutter offers Codemagic CI/CD approach. It was developed by Nevercode with the end goal of no configuration. That implies that Codemagic quickly defines, construct, tests and packages the Flutter mobile applications.
By comparing both native iOS development and Flutter application development, it’s difficult to decide the one winner. It totally relies upon an organization’s budget limit, project, and context to choose anyone. In spite of the fact that Flutter has some cool features it’s not perfect. It’s still a new platform and has more chance to develop.
If you are still facing problems to choose development platform for ios, consult with solace experts. Hire dedicated flutter developers for ios development. Connect with Solace and get a free quote for effective ios flutter development. Experts are here to help you for your desired software development.