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InfoQ Homepage News Flutter 3 Now Stable on All Supported Platforms, Extends Material Design 3

Flutter 3 Now Stable on All Supported Platforms, Extends Material Design 3

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At its recent Google I/O conference, Google announced Flutter 3 which stabilizes support for macOS and Linux, thus completing Flutter's cross-platform roadmap. Flutter 3 also brings support for Apple Silicon and a new Casual Game Toolkit.

With the release of stable support for macOS and Linux, Flutter 3 apps can run on six different platforms sharing the same Dart codebase. In addition to macOS and Linux, Flutter 3 supports iOS, Android, Web, and Windows.

Adding platform support requires more than rendering pixels: it includes new input and interaction models, compilation and build support, accessibility and internationalization, and platform-specific integration.

Superlist co-founder and head of design Brandon Arnold says Flutter helped his company achieve flawless user experience and consistent behaviour across devices and operating systems.

Google is also trying to extend the reach of Flutter into game development by introducing Casual Games Toolkit, which aims to make it easier to integrate an app with services like ads, in-app purchases, Firebase, Play Services, and Game Center. In addition to this, developers also get a game template integrating all those services.

Google is not aiming Flutter to the development of advanced 3D action games. Rather, Flutter can be an interesting option for casual game developers who wish to easily leverage hardware-accelerated graphics. Additionally, says Google, Flutter can be used to create the non-game UI for any game, as showcased by PUBG Mobile.

As usual, along with Flutter 3, Google is also releasing a new version of Dart. Dart 2.17 focuses on productivity and portability. It includes new language features, such as enums with member support, improved parameter forwarding to super classes, and more flexibility for named parameters. Also improved are Dart linter package:lints and C interop through dart:ffi.

As mentioned, the new releases of Flutter and Dart fully embrace Apple Silicon:

While Flutter has been compatible with M1-powered Apple devices since their release, Flutter now takes full advantage of Dart’s support for Apple silicon, enabling much faster compilation on M1-powered devices and support for universal binaries for macOS apps.

As a final note, Flutter 3 also advances work for Material 3 support, which provides the foundation for Flutter design system. It includes dynamic color support, better typography, and improved components.

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