What is Flutter?
Enter Flutter, Google’s open-source UI software development kit. Already used for several well-known apps, including many Google Assistant apps, Flutter helps you design apps with beautiful UIs quickly and easily. With a widgets catalog and a variety of ready to use packages (just like our Flutter Scanner SDK), that save you time and effort. It’s faster than Xamarin, and you can design for more platforms, including Google’s new Fuchsia OS.
Similar to Microsoft’s Xamarin, Flutter has been taken on board by several big names so far, including brands like Tencent and The New York Times. The way Flutter uses its Dart language to create declarative UIs lets you use the compilation features native to the platform you’re targeting.
Putting the multi in multi-platform
It’s nice knowing that you can create apps with excellent user interfaces for any platform, but what about platforms that haven’t even been built yet? Flutter lets you design for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux, and most interestingly, there is Google’s new Fuchsia OS.
Fuchsia went live in July 2019, after hanging around quietly since 2016, and it might be aimed mainly at the rapidly growing IoT market. Flutter is the official UI toolkit for Fuchsia, so it’s something to get into if you want to design apps or Flutter SDKs for the next generation of technology even if you don’t plan to change how you currently build apps for other platforms.
Besides, there are rumors that Fuchsia OS could end up becoming the next Android. It’s set to give Flutter developers access to a massive range of hardware to base new app innovations on.
Why did I state “Android and iOS apps” in the title and not “mobile apps”? Google recently confirmed that Fuchsia OS natively runs Android apps. Great news if you want to integrate our Flutter Scanner SDK (which builds upon Android), or to know that your current crop of Android apps work with Flutter devices.
Enter the Flutter Scanner SDK by Scanbot – More than just scanning features
The Scanbot SDK has been helping mobile app developers add scanning, OCR, and data extraction features to their apps for several years using platforms like React Native and Xamarin, Cordova, Ionic, and PhoneGap. We’ve now added the Flutter SDK, so you can join the increasingly noisy Flutter revolution without giving up your favorite Scanbot SDK features.
The Flutter Scanner SDK gives developers access to a wide range of features, provided with a flat license fee (no pay-per-user or scan surprise bills). You can pay for as many or as few features as you want, from simple QR code and barcode scanning features to advanced data extraction and OCR for documents.
Add features like data extraction of ID documents, parsing of driver licenses, or the recognition of data in invoices. Or help your customers create crisp, clear multi-page scanned PDFs to help with study or work.
Easy to add the functionality users want
As a developer, your app needs to go beyond merely looking good. Your apps need to have the features that people need, preferably before they even know they do. It’s one of the things that make Flutter an excellent choice for app development.
While the look and feel of your new app is already taken care of, Flutter offers you easy ways to create the functionality popular with users. If you’re using Flutter to develop for Android or iOS, it’s a relatively simple process to integrate third-party SDKs like our Flutter Scanner SDK from the Google repository. Once you get the hang of the process, you’ll find it speeds up app development a lot when compared with other cross-platform SDKs.
There are a few downsides to Flutter
Flutter is still very much in development, so many code editors currently don’t have great support for Dart – the coding language Flutter uses. You’ll also have to learn Dart. But since Flutter and Fuchsia OS are likely to grow a lot, it’s probably a good idea anyhow.
It takes a while until Flutter becomes as well established as some of the former cross-platform offerings. There is, however, a growing community with a rapidly expanding number of useful resources.
Keeping up with the competition
So, why should you switch to Flutter? Not only does Flutter offer a great-looking, fast mobile app development environment, it’s also the UI toolkit for Google’s eagerly awaited Fuchsia OS. You can get a head start with Fuchsia before its official launch in 2020, but the main reason to check out Dart and Flutter now is to take advantage of that beautiful UI kit and rapid development times. And our Flutter Scanner SDK shows that there’s substantial interest in the industry and that it’s possible to provide you with outstanding SDKs that bridge the gap to native development.
It’s also important to keep an eye on other app developers. Currently, lots of agencies are starting to use Flutter instead of React Native or Xamarin, in preparation for whatever Google’s next move is.
Some are porting their existing native apps to Flutter, and many use Flutter for new Android apps, whether as a UI framework or as a stand-alone SDK.
Add the fact that (ignoring games) business and education are the two most popular app categories in 2019, on both iOS and Android. This leaves enough opportunities for a feature-rich document scanning and data extraction SDKs, like Scanbot’s Flutter Scanner SDK, to become a part of innovative new apps in these popular segments.
We give you the expertise you deserve
Flutter and its Dart programming language are already starting to take over the cross-platform development market. Even without taking the impending Fuchsia OS into account, it offers a fast, good looking mobile app development platform for iOS and Android development.
The ability to integrate Scanbot and other third-party SDKs allows developers to integrate exciting new features quickly and efficiently while offering users the look and feel they demand these days. Scanbot’s SDK lets you run Scanbot’s scanning, and data extraction features natively under a Flutter UI. Give your users the experience they deserve and give yourself back the time you’ll save with Flutter’s faster development times.
If you’re interested in our new Flutter Barcode Scanner or Flutter Document Scanner SDKs, feel free to contact one of our experts, so we can find the perfect solution for your use case. Let’s talk.