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This is a welcome addition but why should Flutter devs use this ? Seems like it requires 32gb of ram! Also Flutter is already very mature and can produce not o

This is a welcome addition but why should Flutter devs use this ? Seems like it requires 32gb of ram! Also Flutter is already very mature and can produce not only near-native mobile apps (the difference is almost negligible) but can target desktop and even web applications. I do wonder how much of a boost skip offers vs Flutter's mobile apps. Will give skip a try when dram prices normalize.

trevor-e 9mo ago
Flutter still doesn't support liquid glass on iOS so it doesn't seem like a serious contender to me at this point. And due to the nature of how Flutter is implemented, it's going to continuously be an uphill battle. Maybe it's fine if you intend on having a completely custom UI and don't care about platform look and feel.
- cosmic_cheese 9mo ago
  In general, the "render UI as if it were a video game" route feels like a bit of a dead end on mobile to me. On desktop it's more workable but still isn't without issues.
- skybrian 9mo ago
  I've heard bad things about liquid glass and plan to skip that OS release, so not implementing it seems like an advantage from my perspective.
- eptcyka 9mo ago
  > Flutter still doesn't support liquid glass on iOS Literally every iOS developer under the sun will tell me that this is a good thing.
  - frizlab 9mo ago
    No. I’m an iOS developer and will not tell you that, except to say it’s a good thing to have one more reason for the people not to use flutter.
  - daveidol 9mo ago
    Why? I'm an iOS developer and, while I don't love everything about liquid glass, that is the current design language of iOS. I certainly don't think having my app sticking out like a sore thumb, using a design language from old outdated iOS versions is "a good thing"
    - WA 9mo ago
      The new direction isn’t Liquid Glass, but a more unified branding across Android and iOS. WhatsApp, Google Maps, Instagram, Netflix, Prime Video, and many others don’t look dated, because they don’t make heavy use of the older iOS design language at all.
  - lawgimenez 9mo ago
    That’s not a good thing if you don’t adapt liquid glass. I’m an iOS developer.
marcprux 9mo ago
See my response below on the KMP question: the comparison with CMP mostly applies to Flutter as well. > near-native mobile apps (the difference is almost negligible) Not as of the advent of Liquid Glass on iOS (and, to a lesser extent, Material Expressive on Android). Flutter isn't going to be implementing these new interface conventions[1], and so the UI for these apps are stuck on the last generation and are already starting to feel outdated. Flutter's grim outlook has resulted in a surge of interest in Skip, and it was one of the drivers for us to open up the platform and catch the wave. If you love Dart, or if your apps don't need to look native (e.g., games or very bespoke interfaces), then Flutter might continue to be acceptable. But everyone else is starting to look elsewhere, especially in cases where their business depends on their apps feeling premium and native. [1] https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/170310 https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/170310
- IshKebab 9mo ago
  > Flutter isn't going to be implementing these new interface conventions To be fair reading those updates it sounds a lot more positive than this comment makes it seem. I.e. "they're pausing design updates while they figure out the best way to do it" rather than "they're not going to bother": > This strategic pause on design updates gives us the space to ensure the long-term health and maintainability of Flutter's design libraries. We are committed to being transparent with our contributor community as we explore these options and will have more to share on our findings and future direction in the coming weeks. and > The material and cupertino libraries are being decoupled into standalone packages to accelerate feature development. All new work for iOS26 updates in Cupertino will happen in the new packages once established in flutter/packages.
- holoduke 9mo ago
  Well sorry. But Android UI is bad just bad. The settings, the menus. Its bloated and almost as if they deliberately made it annoying to use. It just sucks.
  - NamlchakKhandro 9mo ago
    [flagged]
skavi 9mo ago
Dunno about Skip, but I can always tell when an app is Flutter. They feel like crap. Everything's a bit off with the native looking widgets. And fully custom designs still animate a bit weirdly. And they definitely still stutter. Somehow a tier below React Native.
- winrid 9mo ago
  Flutter re-generates the entire layout every tick and diffs it (immediate-mode), like a game engine. If your device isn't quite fast enough it'll lag, yep. RN is retained mode (but written in immediate-mode style and the diffing only happens when it has to).
  - SoKamil 9mo ago
    Interesting, I didn’t know that it was immediate mode. According to the article [1] though, it now uses rendering engine with Retained Mode due to performance issues. [1] https://medium.com/@0s.and.1s/flutter-part-iv-skia-vs-impeller-graphics-engines-33327e408ba8 https://medium.com/@0s.and.1s/flutter-part-iv-skia-vs-impell...
    - winrid 9mo ago
      ah neat, so they rewrote the rendering engine in C++ and exposed it via Dart APIs, as opposed to everything being in Dart.
      - matt_kn 9mo ago
        It has been like that since the very beginning (sky engine).
  - realusername 9mo ago
    I'd say it's the opposite, on crappy devices, Flutter feels faster than native, not sure how but that's the end result. I've been testing on an old Samsung J3 and it's definitely better than native. That's also maybe why it's so popular in India.
well_ackshually 9mo ago
Flutter is fine if you don't care about performance, accessibility, have no need to access native capabilities or non-fluttered widgets (ex: the Google map integration is awful) and overall just want to make an internal app. The cost of making an excellent flutter app is about the same you'd pay making fully native apps. Except that you're always paying for Skia's costs with Flutter. This recommends 32GB to run _everything_, so xcode, gradle, emulators, simulators, etc. Not fully surprising.
- x0x0 9mo ago
  And are comfortable making a 1-2 million dollar per devteam per year bet that Google won't rug pull you. And they seem to have no important or big app on it. On an unrelated note, in 2024 Google did layoffs on the Flutter team.
  - satvikpendem 9mo ago
    https://shorebird.dev/blog/flutter-not-dead/ https://shorebird.dev/blog/flutter-not-dead/ Also, the layoffs were for infrastructure engineers who were working on Flutter builds not actual core Flutter devs. And the layoff was just an offshoring, they moved the same jobs from the US to Europe.
    - eseidel 9mo ago
      Former Flutter Director, Shorebird founder here. Yes, that matches my understanding. The layoffs happened after I left Google, but yes Google appears to have simply off-shored the infrastructure (build and release) team.
    - x0x0 9mo ago
      That article answers a question nobody had while lying to conflate the poor answer with what people actually want to know. The question isn't if Flutter is dead. It's (1) will Google continue to invest resources to maintain it (and note they could easily make their commitment firm, and have chosen not to do so for obvious reasons: they value the optionality to stop support); and (2) if Google were to reduce/end support, is there enough community, and by community we really mean companies with investments they can't walk away from, to take over maintenance and ongoing development to maintain it as an sdk that can target the evolving platforms. So whether Whirlpool or Toyota use Flutter is entirely irrelevant. You can maintain in-car systems on private code, evidenced by how that was historically done. Toyota using this as their sdk for in-car whatever doesn't help someone whose problem is they need Flutter to work well on ios/android. Whirlpool building an ecommerce app for Brazil... golf clap. Same as MGM's app. Small teams built those; small teams can build new ones. who cares. Even citing the whirlpool app, which is (link followed) actually this: https://flutter.dev/showcase/whirlpool https://flutter.dev/showcase/whirlpool built by a small outsourced company makes clear how thin the support actually is. Suppose google drops support: how many ft engineers is Whirlpool going to pay to maintain Flutter as a first-class deploy target? I'd bet zero. There's nobody like, just for example, Shopify with a multi-billion dollar commitment and a history of open source work who has an investment they're stuck with. or Facebook. Google's internal ads doesn't count: they already Angular'd people. They're perfectly capable of maintaining that as a one-off internal sdk. They don't use it for gmail/maps. Or anything where the migration costs start with a B.
msie 9mo ago
Tried using Flutter a year ago to make a simple Mac app. I don't think it was ready at the time. Also poor documentation.

trevor-e 9mo ago

Flutter still doesn't support liquid glass on iOS so it doesn't seem like a serious contender to me at this point. And due to the nature of how Flutter is implemented, it's going to continuously be an uphill battle. Maybe it's fine if you intend on having a completely custom UI and don't care about platform look and feel.

cosmic_cheese 9mo ago
In general, the "render UI as if it were a video game" route feels like a bit of a dead end on mobile to me. On desktop it's more workable but still isn't without issues.
skybrian 9mo ago
I've heard bad things about liquid glass and plan to skip that OS release, so not implementing it seems like an advantage from my perspective.
eptcyka 9mo ago
> Flutter still doesn't support liquid glass on iOS Literally every iOS developer under the sun will tell me that this is a good thing.
- frizlab 9mo ago
  No. I’m an iOS developer and will not tell you that, except to say it’s a good thing to have one more reason for the people not to use flutter.
- daveidol 9mo ago
  Why? I'm an iOS developer and, while I don't love everything about liquid glass, that is the current design language of iOS. I certainly don't think having my app sticking out like a sore thumb, using a design language from old outdated iOS versions is "a good thing"
  - WA 9mo ago
    The new direction isn’t Liquid Glass, but a more unified branding across Android and iOS. WhatsApp, Google Maps, Instagram, Netflix, Prime Video, and many others don’t look dated, because they don’t make heavy use of the older iOS design language at all.
- lawgimenez 9mo ago
  That’s not a good thing if you don’t adapt liquid glass. I’m an iOS developer.

marcprux 9mo ago

See my response below on the KMP question: the comparison with CMP mostly applies to Flutter as well. > near-native mobile apps (the difference is almost negligible) Not as of the advent of Liquid Glass on iOS (and, to a lesser extent, Material Expressive on Android). Flutter isn't going to be implementing these new interface conventions[1], and so the UI for these apps are stuck on the last generation and are already starting to feel outdated. Flutter's grim outlook has resulted in a surge of interest in Skip, and it was one of the drivers for us to open up the platform and catch the wave. If you love Dart, or if your apps don't need to look native (e.g., games or very bespoke interfaces), then Flutter might continue to be acceptable. But everyone else is starting to look elsewhere, especially in cases where their business depends on their apps feeling premium and native. [1] https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/170310 https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/170310

IshKebab 9mo ago
> Flutter isn't going to be implementing these new interface conventions To be fair reading those updates it sounds a lot more positive than this comment makes it seem. I.e. "they're pausing design updates while they figure out the best way to do it" rather than "they're not going to bother": > This strategic pause on design updates gives us the space to ensure the long-term health and maintainability of Flutter's design libraries. We are committed to being transparent with our contributor community as we explore these options and will have more to share on our findings and future direction in the coming weeks. and > The material and cupertino libraries are being decoupled into standalone packages to accelerate feature development. All new work for iOS26 updates in Cupertino will happen in the new packages once established in flutter/packages.
holoduke 9mo ago
Well sorry. But Android UI is bad just bad. The settings, the menus. Its bloated and almost as if they deliberately made it annoying to use. It just sucks.
- NamlchakKhandro 9mo ago
  [flagged]

skavi 9mo ago

Dunno about Skip, but I can always tell when an app is Flutter. They feel like crap. Everything's a bit off with the native looking widgets. And fully custom designs still animate a bit weirdly. And they definitely still stutter. Somehow a tier below React Native.

winrid 9mo ago
Flutter re-generates the entire layout every tick and diffs it (immediate-mode), like a game engine. If your device isn't quite fast enough it'll lag, yep. RN is retained mode (but written in immediate-mode style and the diffing only happens when it has to).
- SoKamil 9mo ago
  Interesting, I didn’t know that it was immediate mode. According to the article [1] though, it now uses rendering engine with Retained Mode due to performance issues. [1] https://medium.com/@0s.and.1s/flutter-part-iv-skia-vs-impeller-graphics-engines-33327e408ba8 https://medium.com/@0s.and.1s/flutter-part-iv-skia-vs-impell...
  - winrid 9mo ago
    ah neat, so they rewrote the rendering engine in C++ and exposed it via Dart APIs, as opposed to everything being in Dart.
    - matt_kn 9mo ago
      It has been like that since the very beginning (sky engine).
- realusername 9mo ago
  I'd say it's the opposite, on crappy devices, Flutter feels faster than native, not sure how but that's the end result. I've been testing on an old Samsung J3 and it's definitely better than native. That's also maybe why it's so popular in India.

well_ackshually 9mo ago

Flutter is fine if you don't care about performance, accessibility, have no need to access native capabilities or non-fluttered widgets (ex: the Google map integration is awful) and overall just want to make an internal app. The cost of making an excellent flutter app is about the same you'd pay making fully native apps. Except that you're always paying for Skia's costs with Flutter. This recommends 32GB to run _everything_, so xcode, gradle, emulators, simulators, etc. Not fully surprising.

x0x0 9mo ago
And are comfortable making a 1-2 million dollar per devteam per year bet that Google won't rug pull you. And they seem to have no important or big app on it. On an unrelated note, in 2024 Google did layoffs on the Flutter team.
- satvikpendem 9mo ago
  https://shorebird.dev/blog/flutter-not-dead/ https://shorebird.dev/blog/flutter-not-dead/ Also, the layoffs were for infrastructure engineers who were working on Flutter builds not actual core Flutter devs. And the layoff was just an offshoring, they moved the same jobs from the US to Europe.
  - eseidel 9mo ago
    Former Flutter Director, Shorebird founder here. Yes, that matches my understanding. The layoffs happened after I left Google, but yes Google appears to have simply off-shored the infrastructure (build and release) team.
  - x0x0 9mo ago
    That article answers a question nobody had while lying to conflate the poor answer with what people actually want to know. The question isn't if Flutter is dead. It's (1) will Google continue to invest resources to maintain it (and note they could easily make their commitment firm, and have chosen not to do so for obvious reasons: they value the optionality to stop support); and (2) if Google were to reduce/end support, is there enough community, and by community we really mean companies with investments they can't walk away from, to take over maintenance and ongoing development to maintain it as an sdk that can target the evolving platforms. So whether Whirlpool or Toyota use Flutter is entirely irrelevant. You can maintain in-car systems on private code, evidenced by how that was historically done. Toyota using this as their sdk for in-car whatever doesn't help someone whose problem is they need Flutter to work well on ios/android. Whirlpool building an ecommerce app for Brazil... golf clap. Same as MGM's app. Small teams built those; small teams can build new ones. who cares. Even citing the whirlpool app, which is (link followed) actually this: https://flutter.dev/showcase/whirlpool https://flutter.dev/showcase/whirlpool built by a small outsourced company makes clear how thin the support actually is. Suppose google drops support: how many ft engineers is Whirlpool going to pay to maintain Flutter as a first-class deploy target? I'd bet zero. There's nobody like, just for example, Shopify with a multi-billion dollar commitment and a history of open source work who has an investment they're stuck with. or Facebook. Google's internal ads doesn't count: they already Angular'd people. They're perfectly capable of maintaining that as a one-off internal sdk. They don't use it for gmail/maps. Or anything where the migration costs start with a B.

msie 9mo ago

Tried using Flutter a year ago to make a simple Mac app. I don't think it was ready at the time. Also poor documentation.