Flutter is truly evolving into the framework of your dreams
Flutter Interact is finally here, and like every preceding Flutter conference, it packed a whole lot of punch. Aside from the usual cherishing of the year-long adventure with Flutter and the exploration of its cross-platform capabilities, with the buzzword 'ambient computing' being thrown a lot, the conference covered a whole lot of announcements - mostly related to third-party support for Flutter.
With a long list of keynotes backed by so many announcements on the board, the conference laid quite a lot of emphasis on design - and that in my opinion is the ace in the hole.
The introduction of Flutter support for Supernova Studio was an important affair because now there seems to be a lot of attention being given to the design aspect of development by the Flutter team - which can very well be the game-changer, especially considering the fact that it is the only version of Supernova which is free and that Supernova will itself base its revised web app on the Flutter ecosystem.
Along with that, Adobe declared Flutter support for the Adobe XD platform and a plugin for Dart source generation straight out of the box.
As if this was not enough, 2Dimesions comes back as Rive, with Flare, now known as Rive too. A keynote featured a demo for how easy it actually is to create complex animation and export them directly for use in Flutter.
These tools allow designers to collaborate with developers seamlessly - the designs they create can be directly converted to Dart code and with a few tweaks can be really made production-ready.
They seek to reduce friction in the design-develop cycle considerably, subsequently increasing both design and developer velocity.
This, if it turns to work out, is no small feat. All the hours wasted on supposed 'tweaks' in interfaces and all the lost detail that took away the shine and gloss of the UI can be eliminated.
This will put Flutter in a very special position - it will become 'the' framework for prototypes, fast development cycles and the primary choice of the small budget, high-velocity teams.
Though it still stands true in a limited sense, this immense emphasis on design makes it possible for small teams and individuals to develop professional, high-quality products with a tight budget in a fraction of the time.
To top it all, its 'ambient computing' capabilities will allow such teams to develop their products without much concern for the platforms the products would be used on. Flutter supports it all - iOS, Android, Web, desktop, Embedded Systems - you name it.
All this allows Flutter to be the framework the community craved - the freedom to work independently, develop high-performance products and smooth experiences all by yourself and implement complex UIs in a jiffy.
And so, as the framework enters its second year, strong with multi-platform support, a flexible design system and a super-powerful engine to back it all up, the community seems to expect a lot more from it, and the Flutter team and the contributors seem to be delivering well on their promises. And that is why I think this is a truly exciting time to be working on this platform and creating unique experiences.