What’s New In Flutter 1.20?

Google, on August 5, 2020 has launched a version of Flutter 1.20 Stable. In the previous release, Google introduced substantial performance improvements, improved support for Metal on ios and new material widgets. With the new biggest release, Flutter 1.20 has resolved 5485 issues and merged 3029 pull requests. Flutter 1.20 release had 359 contributors from across the world and among them 270 were from the flutter community. Flutter 1.20 stable release includes performance improvements, some UI enhancements, update to the visual studio code extension, autofill for mobile text fields and so on. Each new release of Flutter brings with it increased usage and momentum. Google boasts that, now there are more than 90,000 apps developed with Google Play, which was 50,000 till April. And most of the growth comes from India,  which is now the top region for Flutter developers, Google says.

Let’s have a look at the new features and updates of flutter 1.20.

What’s New in Flutter 1.20? Updates & Features-

Performance Improvements For Flutter And Dart-

• Google Flutter 1.20 is improved with a performance fix for tree-shake-icons which are default when building non web apps and reduce the size of your app by removing icons that are not used. Icon font tree shaking is currently restricted to True Type Fonts  but can be lifted in the future.
• Janky animations can affect the overall app. It appears negatively in the first run due to a shady compilation jank. With new Skia Shading Language Shader warm-up, the shader compilation jank can be reduced  by 2 times.
• Flutter has improved mouse hit testing’s performance in web-based micro-benchmark by 15 times. As a result, Google has been able to add support for mouse cursors which will display in various commonly used widgets.
• Along with all these improvements, Google also enhanced the decoding speed and time of Dart’s UTF-8 Decoder. In UTF-8 decoding benchmarks, the company ahs measured improvements of nearly 200% for english text and 400% for chinese text on low-end ARM devices.

1. Autofill for mobile text fields-

One of the most requested features among developers is text autofill in Flutter apps. With the new Flutter 1.20 release, basic autofill functionality has been added. Now you do not need to ask your users to fill the data again that the OS has already collected. The text autofill feature is also brought for web apps too.

2. Interactive viewer widget-

Another new feature in Flutter 1.20 is interactive viewer. This new widget is designed to build interactive elements in your app like pan, zoom, drag ‘n’ drop and so on. The feature takes boundary margin, minScale, maxScale and any type of child property on which transformation is performed. Put your cursor on the property and you can drag n drop, zoom in out using the cursor. 

3. Updated DatePicker, TimePicker, RangeSlider, And Material Slider-

This new release includes many updated widgets to match the latest material guidelines. These include Slider and RangeSlider. DatePicker has been updated to include a new compact design as well as support for date ranges. And TimePicker has a completely new style.

4. New pubspec format for publishing plugins-

The pubspec.yaml has been removed in Flutter 1.20. So now you’ve to adopt the new pubspec.yaml format to update or publish new plugin. The old format did not support specifying which platforms your plugins support, and has been deprecated since Flutter 1.12.  The new pubspec.yaml format is now required for publishing new or updated plugins.

For clients of plugins, the tools understand the old pubspec format and will for the foreseeable future. Existing plugins on pub.dev using the legacy pubspec.yaml format will work as usual with Flutter apps for the foreseeable future.

5. Tooling metadata for all tool builders-

This is an update in Flutter 1.20 for developers creating flutter tooling. They have released a complete catalog of metadata for a 395 widgets. For every single widget there are parents, libraries and descriptions available in the Catalog and one icon metadata for material and cupertino icons. Icon metadata includes color mapping, values of the color and icon names and previews as well.

6. Typesafe platform channels for platform interop-

Because of increasing demand from Pigeon authors, google is experimenting the making communication between flutter and host platforms simpler and more secure for Add-to-App and plugins. To fulfill this need google has created Pigeon, a command line tool which uses Dart syntax to generate type-safe messaging code on top of platform channels without including extra runtime dependencies. 

With Pigeon, rather than manually matching method strings on platform channels and serializing arguments, you can call Kotlin/Swift/Objective-C/Java class methods and pass non-primitive data objects by directly calling Dart methods. Pigeon is mature enough that we can use it in video_player plugin.

7. Mouse cursor support-

Mouse cursor for desktop is one of the upvoted features of Flutter 1.20. Now you’ll get better, faster and stronger hit testing using your mouse cursor.

8. Updating import statements on file rename-

For visual studio code has a new feature- updating imports on rename. This new feature automatically updates import statements when files are renamed or removed. Right now, it just works for single files, but the support for multiple files will be announced soon.

9. Auto import change in VSCode-

Another improvement is support for auto import changes in Visual Studio Code. Means when you change the location of file from one folder to another, the import will automatically be changed.

Other important changes/updates-

Flutter 1.20 has lots of other new features and developer tools. These are some of few: 

• support for automatically updating import statements when files are moved or renamed in Visual Studio Code; and more.
• an updated Flutter plugins
• a new responsive licenses page available from the AboutDialog
• a new pubspec.yaml format requirement for publishing
• an updated Network page in Dart DevTools with support for web socket profiling

Final Words-

These are some new features and updates from new release Flutter 1.20. There can be few others too. Google says that Flutter 1.20 is the framework’s biggest release yet and is still working on implementing sound null safety support, new versions of Ads, Maps and WebView plugins, tooling support and so on.

Are you looking to develop an app with Flutter? We have a dedicated team of flutter developers to help you through development. You can hire skilled Flutter developers of Solace team for an effective development. Connect with solace and get a free quote for flutter app development. We will be happy to help you.

An Ultimate Guide To Mobile App Maintenance

 

Mobile apps have gained importance for businesses due to its innovative features. User-friendly interface and marketing campaigns. If you have ever searched about app development, you might get a lot of stuff about app development frameworks, app development steps, app store optimization tips and so on. After the launch of the App, there is one thing that has its own importance i.e. mobile app maintenance. But there are just a few things that can guide you regarding the maintenance of mobile app. You already know the importance of mobile app development, but do you know the importance of app maintenance?

Here we will discuss all about the need, types and the engagement models of maintenance so that you can plan out your mobile app’s maintenance cost. 

Need Of Mobile App Maintenance-

Mobile App Maintenance

1. Hardware-

Nearly every 6 months, new hardware is being launched and adapted by each new phone that is to be launched. Hence your app should be optimized so as to work with modern hardware. This is a time where you need a maintenance team to make changes and release new versions.

2. Operating system-

Each year, there are new updates for iOS and Android version and accordingly apps should be updated for proper functioning.

3. Update app with technological trends-

Let us consider an example of Dark mode which changes the complete theme of your phone to dark in order to lessen the eye strain in case of low lighting. Now consider that, a user is accessing a mobile with dark theme, then he would expect the same from your app too.  If you didn’t change the app as needed, the user may face eye strain and hence he may search for another similar app that provides dark mode and uninstall your app.

4. Minimizing uninstalls-

The app journey will not end with the launch of an app. Continuous monitoring and maintenance are the best ways to achieve success and it can be done after the app is being used. It is beneficial and necessary to consider the feedback you receive or the analytics you get. It will help to analyse the behaviour of users and get rid of uninstalls. 

5. Integrating emerging technologies-

New technologies are taking over the market and you cannot predict anything about them. The only thing is to integrate it after a stable release. Let us see how maintenance is necessary for your app if it revolves around emerging technologies.

• AI-

Artificial intelligence needs data regularly and hiring a team for maintenance is cheaper than getting panel to control how data is fetched. AI algorithms could be anything but what it will fetch has to go through app directly. In this way, maintenance can solve your problems by changing the code.

• IoT- 

IoT allows you to operate devices of daily chores through app, and hence maintenance is necessary 

• AR-

Aligning images that are displayed on your phone is an ongoing task and it can be carried out smoothly through maintenance. Augmented reality always need more objects as your customers increases and it is better to hire permanent designers to make them, maintenance team would be cheaper for deploying them and updating the app accordingly.

6. Security-

Applications may be affected by security holes, and you have to update the app so as to fix the issues.

Apart from all these points, you should frequently update your app to keep it top on the app store.

Types of app maintenance-

1. Corrective-

Corrective maintenance includes removing faults and residual errors in the daily app functions. Residual errors are the errors in design, logic and coding.

2. Adaptive-

Adaptive maintenance is the maintenance carried out to achieve perfect adaptability to modern technologies and app store guidelines after the app is deployed. The environment where your app would work in would always be upgrading, so it is necessary to carry out adaptive maintenance. 

3. Perfective-

As users use app, some new requirements can be discovered. Perfective maintenance considers these feedback and make functional modifications in the source code to provide users a perfect user experience as they  expect. 

4. Emergency-

This type of maintenance can take care of all abrupt issues and errors that expect immediate intervention. Whenever an organization detects an unpredictable issue with their app, they must go with emergency maintenance.

App Maintenance Cost-

The app maintenance cost is based on the type of app and complexity. You can distinguish app maintenance cost into following categories-

1. Hosting costs- 

According to the number of users, your hosting cost can increase. It may go up to thousands or ten thousands of dollars each month. These expenses do not include human expenses of creating and maintaining the backend but are important as your app scales up.

2. Monitoring and crash analytics- 

You will need app analytics tools to monitor usage patterns to improve in-app experience. You must invest in tools that will send you real time crash reports. 

3. App store optimization-

App store optimization is important to list your app on app store. You should spend considerable time to keep your app store listing updated by searching appropriate keywords, A/B testing headlines and descriptions, answering reviews, considering feedback, uploading screenshot or videos as features change, running search ads etc.

4. Licenses-

Most of the apps were built using licensed technologies. Some licenses are taken for life, while others need to be renewed on a yearly basis. You must consider the app licensing cost while setting the app maintenance cost.

Apart from these, there are some activities that costs you are as follows-

• Product or demo video
• Content marketing
• Contests and giveaways
• Social media marketing
• In-app ads
• App Store ads
• In-app content creation
• Facebook ads
• Adwords ads
• Email

Final Words-

Mobile app maintenance is important to succeed. Many apps have failed down because creators forget that the users want things according to their way and not the perfect way. App maintenance is not a one time task. As the market is competitive, once the app is launched, it needs more attention and maintenance to provide the expected user experience.

If you are looking for the best app development company to build an application, then we are here to help you for app development and maintenance. Connect with Solace and get a free quote develop a success app that meets users requirements. You can hire android developers and iOS developers of Solace team for effective app development. We will be happy to help you.

Django Vs Ruby on Rails: Which One to Choose? And When?

Selecting the best technology is an important step for web development as it decides how your website and app will perform. There are a lot of web development frameworks and technologies available in the market and hence many entrepreneurs and freelancers get confused to choose the best from a large pool. Most of the entrepreneurs prefer frameworks that are entirely open-source, have wide community support and offer rapid development. Web app development is divided in two parts: front end development and back end development, accordingly there are a lot of tools available to develop robust and scalable web apps.

Django and Ruby on rails are the two most popular web applications that offer development of interactive and scalable websites and web apps. Before proceeding towards Django vs Ruby on rails, let us see each one in detail.

What Is Django?

Django is a Python based web framework released in 2005. It is an open-source and general purpose framework which makes it popular among web developers. This framework was designed to simplify the development of complex and database driven websites. It allows rapid development with neat and pragmatic design.

What Is Ruby on Rails?

Ruby on Rails is a server-side, open source web app framework written under MIT Licence. Rails provides a great default structure for database, pages and web services. It works on DRY(Don’t Repeat Yourself) and Conversion Over Configuration. DRY eliminates the need of doing the same task of coding repeatedly and Conversion Over Configuration means you can adapt instead of creating your own rules every time. And this makes the whole process easy.

Similarities Between Django And Ruby on Rails-

Django and ROR both are used to develop interactive and scalable websites and web apps. Let us see similarities of both frameworks-

• Django and ROR both are open source web app frameworks, used to build robust web apps and websites.
• Both frameworks have a large and active community, so if you have any issue, a large community is there to help you to solve your problem. Hence ROR developers and Django experts are preferring these frameworks
• Both the frameworks are fast, reliable and speed up the development process.
• Django and Ruby on Rails both are MVC based structure means website or web app development will be arranged into layers, models, defined routes and controllers within the framework itself.

Django Vs Ruby on Rails-

1. Maturity Of Platform-

Django was first released in 2005 and since it has been on the list of best frameworks for web development. His recent release was released in December 2019 which includes many new features and improved usability. 

ROR was first released in 2003 and in 2004 it was declared as an open source program. It’s latest version is released in August 2019.

2. Syntax-

ROR is based on ruby while Django uses Python. Python is a widely used programming language and is popular for its simple and readable code whereas Ruby is famous for its syntax. Ruby has a simple syntax like english language and this makes it popular among the developer community.

3. Principles-

Principles holds the process of web app development. Django has to principles  and “Explicit is better than Implicit.” This helps developers to create easy to understand software that can be managed by many people.

Ruby on Rails uses DRY and the Configuration Convention means you have to follow the guidelines so as to be successful instead of making your own configurations. It helps to improve efficiency and speed.

4. User Interface-

Django and ROR both are absolute winners in this case. Both of them offer a high-class experience. These web frameworks allow you to develop fully loaded functional websites with add-ons and plugins.

5. Speed And Performance-

In the comparison of ROR and Django, Rails is 0.7% faster because of its amazing libraries and plugins. All things considered, Django similarly supports rapid development processes and is a great decision for a web framework. Django REST framework delivers convenience as authentication modules, JSON serializers/deserializers etc. When comparing Django vs ROR, Django may have an edge because REST is and advantage of Django. The performance of Django vs Rails is high for both as it uses modern programming languages while providing tools to optimize the code.

6. Security-

Django and ROR, both are secure web app frameworks having set of tools that websites or web apps from SQL injection, cross-site scripting and so on. You can trust both of these frameworks as far as security.

7. HTML Template-

Although the main feature of Django and Ruby on Rails framework is template, Django makes use of simple template language to allow developers for template creation with less programming and HTML capabilities. On the other side, Rails’ views are more complicated.

8. Web Servers-

Main web servers for Django are NGINX using WSGI, Apache, Gunicorn and Cherokee, whereas database servers for Django are SQLite, PostgreSQL, MySQL and Oracle.

Ruby on Rails web framework uses NGINX, Apache and WEBrick as prominent servers. Database servers for Rails include MySQL and PostgreSQL.

9. Community Support-

Django is an open source framework and has an open source ecosystem, which means there are a bunch of libraries and tools available which are free and paid. It has documentation which is enough to provide you a solution for issue. Django community is more than 11000 with more than 4000 ready packages for developers.

Ruby on Rails has an active community of 5000 people who have already contributed with reusable code.

When To Choose Django?

• If you require configuration-based approach 
• If you do not need out of the box functionality
• You can choose Django if your team is ready to use Python 

When To Choose RoR?

• If you have a skilled team of developers 
• you need to develop application fast with libraries
• should be able to iterate quick RoR minimizes code writing time and lets your team deploy faster.

Final Words-

Selecting the right framework is an important task. Django and Ruby on Rails are great frameworks having their own advantages and disadvantages. Considering above factors will surely help you to decide the best one according to project’s requirements.

You can hire dedicated Django developers of solace team, if you want to use a Python-based framework. Also if you want more functionalities for your web app, then you can go with ROR and hire ruby on rails developers. Connect with the solace team and get a free quote for a web development with Django or Ruby on rails. We will be happy to help you.

Kubernetes Security Best Practices That You Must Know

Kubernetes is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling  and management of containerized applications. But these new deployments can cause attacks and exploits from attackers and insiders as traditional environments which makes kubernetes security a prime concern for all deployments. 

Nearly, 94% of organizations have encountered a genuine security issue within a year in their container environment, 69% having detected misconfigurations, 27% experienced runtime security issues and also 24% found significant vulnerabilities to remediate. Each of these issues relates to a container lifecycle phase. You can differentiate these vulnerabilities during build/deploy phase, runtime phase etc.

Kubernetes Vulnerabilities And Attack Vectors-

Attacks on Kubernetes containers running in pods can come internally by insiders or externally through the network, that includes victims of phishing attacks whose system becomes a mediator for insider attacks. Some of the examples are as follows-

1. Unauthorized connections between pods- Compromised containers can try to connect with running pods to attack. Layer 3 network controls whitelisting pod IP addresses can offer protection but attacks over trusted IP addresses can only be detected with Layer 7 network filtering.

2. Container compromise- Application misconfiguration or vulnerability empowers the attacker to get into a container to start probing for weaknesses in the network, process controls or file system. 

3. Data exfiltration from a pod- Data stealing is generally carried out by combination of techniques, which can include a reverse shell in a pod connecting to a command/control server and network tunneling to hide confidential information.

Kubernetes Security Best Practices: Infrastructure Security-

Kubernetes Security Best Practices

1. Update your Kubernetes-

Only the last three versions of Kubernetes are supported, including security patches for new vulnerabilities. Hence if severe vulnerability is discovered, and you are four versions behind, then your version will not receive a patch.   

2. Securely configure the Kubernetes API server-

Ensure that you’re disabling unauthenticated/anonymous access and using TLS encryption for connections between the kubelets and the API server. 

Kubernetes Security Best Practices: Build Phase-

Securing containers and Kubernetes begins in the build phase with securing your container images. Any missed security best practices will be essentially more costly to fix down the line – consequently the expression “shift left” which means implementing security at prior stages as images are built. Scan and secure images are the main things to secure from any known vulnerabilities.

Recommendations-

1. Use an image scanner-

Image scanner can identify vulnerabilities in your images, including by layer and tell you whether they are fixable or not. It must scan for vulnerabilities in OS packages and also third-party runtime libraries for the languages being utilized in your containerized applications.

2. Label non-fixable vulnerabilities-

Some of the time there isn’t a fix for a known vulnerability, or the vulnerability is non-critical and hence doesn’t warrant a quick fix. At such time, include them to allow list or filter the scanner output so that you don’t intrude on the development team’s workflows over non-actionable alerts.

3. Don’t include unnecessary components-

Ensure that you’ve removed debugging tools from containers in production. Tools such as Curl should not be included in images.

4. Implement defense-in-depth-

When a security issue is discovered in a container image or a running deployment that utilizes that image, ensure you have policy checks and a remediation workflow set up to recognize and update those images.

Kubernetes Security Best Practices: Deploy Phase-

From a security point of view, you first need visibility into what you’re deploying – and how. At that point you can recognize and respond to security policy violations.

What is being deployed- including data about the image being used, like components or vulnerabilities and pods.

Where it is going to be deployed- namespaces, clusters and nodes.

How it is deployed- regardless of whether it runs privileged, what other deployments it can coordinate with, the pod security context that is applied, if any

What it can access- includes volumes, secrets and also other components like host or orchestrator API

Recommendations-

1. Isolate sensitive workloads by using namespaces-

Namespaces are a main isolation boundary for Kubernetes resources. It provides a reference for network policies, access control restrictions and also other important security controls. Separating workloads into namespaces can limit the impact of mistakes or destructive actions by authorize users.

2. Use Kubernetes network policies-

Kubernetes allows every pod to contact other pods. Network segmentation policies are the key security control that can prevent parallel movement across containers for the situation that an attacker breaks in.

Kubernetes Security Best Practices: Runtime Phase-

Know more at- https://solaceinfotech.com/blog/kubernetes-security-best-practices-that-you-must-know/

How Mobile Apps Drives Digital Transformation Of Your Business?

Since 2 months, due to covid-19 pandemic, we have experienced a lot of transformation in our day to day life. Businesses are facing a lot of issues to operate in than those that were operational a few decades prior. Also the market was not competitive as it is now and hence business owners need to go with digital transformation. Business’s digital transformation could be in any way. It can be with the use of mobile apps and its capabilities. Before we start the discussion about the role of mobile apps in digital transformation, let us see What digital transformation means?

What Is Digital Transformation?

Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is a process of using digital technologies to transform existing or creating new business processes, customer experience and culture to meet changing market and  market needs. This changing nature of business in the digital age is digital transformation. It starts and ends with how you and your business interacts with customers. As you moved from paper to spreadsheets to smart applications is a kind of digital transformation that you are going through. Mobile applications came up with a solution to effectively engage your customers.

Tips To Consider While Implementing Digital Transformation-

1. Define Your Goals And Objectives-

The methods that are beneficial to your competitors doesn’t mean that they are beneficial for you too. So before proceeding further, it is necessary to define the goals and will solve the particular problem. Defining goals will help you to transform digitally by considering the requirements.

Without specified goals you’ll end up with the technologies that are complicated to not only implement but also to access for organization. So get the answers of- Why you are going with digital transformation? And What kind of problems do you want to solve?

2. Define Digital Marketing Strategy-

It is not sufficient to set rough goals and objectives to implement a great digital transformation to your business. You need to analyse thoroughly and accordingly set the targets in detail, so that you can know what needs to be done. You should specify the way through which employees can easily access information, engage and collaborate with each other. Knowing all these details will help you to decide the framework for digital transformation.

3. Assess And Select Technologies-

Once you’re done with digital transformation strategy, it is time to select technologies that you want to use. Also keep in mind that, however every company will need a mobile app, the functionalities you integrate into the application vary according to the type of business and customer requirements.  

Building a successful strategy for digital transformation of business will be a challenge because it impacts on your company structure and strategic positioning. 

ROI For Business-

Small Scale Businesses-

The ROI of digital transformation for startups could be higher because they focus more on improving customer experience and less on operations and management. Building lifetime customers for every new business is important for every new business and can be achieved with the improved UI/UX of mobile apps. Digital transformation can bring these requirements with much lesser than the lifetime value. So high ROI can be expected for small businesses or startups.

Medium Scale Business-

For medium scale businesses, digital transformation strategy can be complicated, because you want the best to satisfy employees and customers requirements. Mobile apps are the most vital solution for medium scale businesses. The ROI for digitalization of medium scale businesses can be high but more important is the value added to the business. Both customer and employees get advantage of digital transformation for better results and can help you to keep updated with the modern activities. Considering all these factors, you should plan accordingly but we suggest focus more on customer’s needs 

Large Scale Businesses-

Implementing digital transformation strategy needs more efforts and in some cases are not effective when you consider it within a short time span. But it is the time until your number of users and employees reaches to thousands. Each advantage of using mobile apps in your digital transformation strategy is the same but the cost may vary according to the strategy and requirements.

For better implementation you need a dedicated app development company to help you  through development and consultation.

Mobile Apps For Digital Transformation-

Mobile Apps For Digital Transformation

There are many components that can make an excellent digital transformation strategy but Mobile app is one of the most important one. The rise of mobile devices and the internet changed the face of many industries. There are 5 important ways in which mobile applications help advance digital transformation for businesses

• Better customer experience
• Reach improvement
• Easier engagement
• Workforce management
• Enterprise mobility

Let us see each one in detail-

1. Better Customer Experience-

A business with a mobile app can effectively drive sales and increase profits by delivering an enhanced user experience. Mobile app development trends are changing and focusing to improve user’s experience with easing the business processes.

2. Reach Improvement-

It is not necessary to go through a website for what you want. These days, you can get anything with just a single click, and is possible due to the large number of mobile apps available at the app store. Nearly 141 billion more apps were downloaded in 2020. This kind of reach for businesses is possible with just a use of mobile apps. With the use of mobile apps, one  can target relevant audience groups and gain much higher ROI in a shorter time span.  

3. Easier Engagement-

Mobile applications are fruitful to increase engagement especially. You can target the audience as per your product type by focusing on the age group and interest for better engagement. You can also embed appealing functionalities within the app interface such as instructions and tutorials.

One of the best examples of engagement is Poshmark app that provides users an opportunity to buy and sell clothes, shoes, accessories etc. Because of limitations of app store, developers cannot create push notifications for coupons, deals and promotions. Poshmark has discovered a cunning solution- encouraging quotes and inspirational sayings. Each notification reminds the user about the brand. Using GPS technology, apps can target the audience in specific geographic areas. 

Beacon technology is another one that works with mobile apps and GPS for higher reach and engagement. With these opportunities, you can know the use of mobile app to engage new and existing customers.

4. Workforce Management-

Mobile apps came with a lot of ease to manage the workforce. It can help the management team to track the performance and attendance of employees. It not only saves time but also brings accuracy to the management irrespective of organization’s size. 

5. Enterprise Mobility-

We have seen, how customers benefit from mobile apps, but what about organizations? What kind of advantages mobility brings to companies? Here are statistics –

• Organizations that invest in enterprise mobile apps experience 35% of business ROI. 
• Till 2022, the enterprise mobility market will reach $2.2 billion
• 67% of CIOs and IT professionals states that enterprise mobility has a great impact on their business.

Enterprise apps allow employees to complete tasks and monitor business processes remotely from mobile devices. Such apps introduces remote working options and flexible schedules. Also users can access and share content at any time, any where and hence employees can get real time updates. Apps can track the status of tasks completed by team. Also with custom mobile apps, enterprises can access a dashboard that controls systems, users and approvals. 

Final Words-

Here you have seen the importance of mobile apps in digital transformation and varying ROI for different scale businesses. The cost of app implementation for various businesses may vary according to the type of business. If you are looking for a best app development company that help you for digital transformation of business, then you are at the right place. Experts at Solace are well  proficient to help you through development. You can hire android or ios developers of solace team to develop a winning app for your business. Connect with solace and get a free quote for app development. We will be happy to help you.

What Is New In Flutter 1.17 And Dart 2.8?

Flutter is a cross-platform programming framework used for developing Android, iOS apps, and now it’s progressing towards the web. Flutter uses Dart programming language to build android, ios, web apps with a unified UI look across all. The first release for Flutter and dart for the year 2020 is out now.

This new version of Flutter has closed 6339 issues and came with many performance level improvements. During the release of Flutter, the whole world is facing the crisis because of pandemic and most of you are working from home, hence Flutter has named this release as Work-From-Home Edition. 

Let’s see top Flutter 1.17 features with came with this stable release:

• 20-37% rapid Navigation within the default case
• Up to 40% decrease in CPU/GPU usage for animations in iOS
• Application size is reduced up to 18.5%
• 70% of memory reduction scrolling through large images
• The default use of Apple’s Metal graphics API, improving rendering time by around 50 percent on iOS

You can also know- Why Flutter is golden technology for ios app development? Flutter 1.17 has introduced a new widget NavigationRail designed by Material Design Team and has also improved the fabric DatePicker widget. 

Let us see the details of the new features.

Features Of Flutter 1.17-

1. Mobile Performance And Size Improvements-

Flutter 1.17 release is mainly focused on performance and memory improvements. By upgrading the app to the new version, your users can experience faster animations, smaller app size, and low memory use. You can experience 20% to 37% speedup for the default navigation case. There is 40% reduction in CPU/GPU use for ios animations, counting on the hardware. 

This release comes with app size improvement with some fixes that gives an enormous result.  Also, this comes with a 70% reduction in memory usage while scrolling through large images and increases the performance. 

2. Material Widgets-

Flutter 1.17 supports new material widgets and also updates to the existing widgets. With this release, NavigationRail is added, which is a replacement widget that gives a responsive app navigation model. It is excellent for apps that will switch between mobile and desktop form factors. DatePicker and TextSelection overflow widgets have also been updated. DatePicker’s new visuals match the updated Material guidelines and add a new text input mode. Now TextSelection has improved fidelity for iOS and Android when buttons are longer than can be displayed without overflowing. Google also releases a new Animation package that provides prebuilt animations by implementing the new Material motion specifications. In short, new release brings- 

• The new NavigationRail widget
• Updated Material DatePicker widget
• Updated text selection overflow on Android
• Updated text selection overflow on iOS

3. Google Fonts-

Google fonts for the updated version have been released and developers can use any fonts from fonts.google.com to their app. When the app is ready for deployment, developer can decide whether the user will receive the font by downloading it from the API or is pre-bundled with the app package.

4. Metal support-

Metal is Apple’s low-level graphics API which allows access to the GPU of ios devices that allows flutter apps to run faster. The metal support improves rendering speeds of iOS apps by 50%. On the iOS devices that support Metal, Flutter now uses it by default, making your Flutter apps run faster most of the time, increasing rendering speeds by about 50 percent on the average.

5. Material Text Scale-

With the new release, Flutter team has completed the implementation of Scale portion of the 2018 Material Design specification. This release updates the TextTheme API to match the Material spec by maintaining the old names so that the code will not break.

6. Accessibility And Internationalization-

It is important to broadcast Flutter apps towards possible audiences, hence we have to focus on accessibility. This new release adds accessibility fixes for scrolling, text fields, and other input widgets.  On the internationalization front, they have been performing on certain issues influencing Samsung console IMEs that influenced content contribution to different East Asian dialects.

On the internationalization front, they have been performing on certain issues influencing Samsung console IMEs that influenced text input to different East Asian languages.

7. Tooling-

If you are using the pre-release version of Dart DevTools implemented with Flutter, you can easily analyze all types of improvements but the most important is the Network tab.

Also, to updated Dart DevTools, this release includes support for the “fast start” option that allows you to start your Flutter app debugging. This feature installs a generic Android app that only depends on the plugin code.

Features of Dart 2.8-

• Dart 2.8 will run a few edge cases and library changes, keeping intact the rest of the code.
• The improved Pubget in Dart 2.8 will be less time-consuming to fetch all the packages and the versions.
• This new version has brought in another feature- the introduction of “ out-of-date” dependencies. It helps to identify any outdated version by writing only the pub outdated command.
• A new tab has been added in Dart 2.8 networking tool. It helps to check all the network requests and it can either be done manually or by using a tab.
• Dev plugins channel has also been introduced for the developers.

Wrap up-

These are some amazing features in Flutter 1.17 and Dart 2.8. One can develop a great flutter app with these new features. Are you looking to develop a flutter app for your business with new features? Then we are here to help you. You can consult with solace experts or hire flutter developers of the solace team to build an amazing application. Connect with Solace and get a free quote for flutter app development that will help your business to lead in the market.