What’s New in Flutter 2.10
Windows stable, performance improvements, Material 3 updates and more!
Google announced a major update to Flutter, its open-source framework that allows developers to share code across multiple platforms. Flutter 2.10's most significant addition is that it brings stable support for Windows apps in Flutter. As a result, developers can make desktop applications in Flutter while also targeting Android, iOS, Linux, and the web.
Google notes that developing apps with desktops and PCs in mind is different than making mobile apps. Computers have wider screens and more input methods than smartphones. Apps on PCs also use different APIs than those running on Android or iOS. Because of these facts, Google had to optimize Flutter for Windows.
Flutter combines a Dart framework and a C++ engine to support Windows, which is similar to how it is built to support Android and iOS.
Google also noted Microsoft’s contributions to the effort, saying, “several teams from Microsoft have contributed to today’s announcement. In particular, we’d like to express our appreciation to the Fluent design team for their contribution of iconography for Flutter apps on Windows. The fluentui_system_icons package has been awarded Flutter Favorite status as a signal of its quality. ”
As of today, there are over 500,000 Flutter apps in the Google Play Store, including apps from BMW, ByteDance (the makers of TikTok), and Google. Flutter is the most popular cross platform framework, according to multiple surveys cited by Google.
