PubNub Now Supports Flutter 2.0 With Our Newest SDK
We’re excited to announce the beta release of the PubNub Dart/Flutter 2.0 SDK. This newest release updates our previous Dart SDK to make it compatible with Flutter 2.0, and allows our customers to build all of our real-time capabilities and features into their Android, iOS, desktop, and web apps with Dart/Flutter.
Why focus on Flutter 2.0?
Over the past year, we’ve increasingly seen developers turning to Flutter because, using it, you can retain the look and feel of native apps while still being able to build cross-functionally. Plus, as an open-source framework, projects built with Flutter can easily be shared through GitHub and worked on collaboratively.
At PubNub, we recognized the increasing popularity of Dart and Flutter, and so our product and engineering teams worked throughout early 2021 to improve our existing Dart SDK to make it easier for developers to build with PubNub.
And today, we can proudly say that we are the first chat API provider to offer a Dart SDK that is Flutter 2.0 compatible.
With our Flutter 2.0 compatible Dart SDK, developers are no longer limited to the operating systems and types of apps they can build. Where Flutter 1.0 only allowed developers to build Android or iOS apps, Flutter 2.0 enables developers to create apps for any platform.
Developers can use the same codebase to ship native apps to five operating systems: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux; as well as web experiences targeting browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge. More specifically, Flutter 2.0 focuses on empowering developers to build three app scenarios: progressive web apps (PWAs), single page apps (SPAs), and translating existing Flutter mobile apps to the web.
These extended capabilities are possible because Flutter 2.0 improves upon Flutter 1.0 by providing production-quality support for the web. The framework is able to support robust platform APIs that allow developers to build sophisticated apps with 2D and 3D graphics, flexible layouts, and full control over design and UI.
The benefits of building with our Dart/Flutter 2.0 SDK
By updating our Dart SDK to be compatible with Flutter 2.0, we’ve been able to create an SDK that is much more impactful for developers, allowing them to:
Bring every PubNub feature to every app type
With this new SDK, you can now easily build every real-time capability of PubNub using Dart/Flutter. Developers who prefer to work with this framework are no longer limited to what they can build with PubNub. They can create the in-app features of their choice with their preferred language. And since our PubNub Dart SDK is compatible with Flutter 2.0, developers building with PubNub can now create apps for web, desktop, Apple, and Android using this advanced framework.
Prototype rapidly
While native app building is often associated with more stable, customizable apps, they can be expensive and time consuming to create and maintain—often requiring large teams and budgets.
By building with the PubNub Dart/Flutter 2.0 SDK, you can retain the qualities of native app building and control over your apps design, since our SDK allows you to customize your UI from scratch and doesn’t just act as a component wrapper. Best of all, you can build and maintain your app in a fraction of the time and budget of native development.
With these savings, you can focus your time and energy on prototyping and testing your app to build better features and functionality to improve user experience and engagement.
Easily collaborate with fellow developers
Unlike other frameworks, Flutter is open source. By building with our Dart/Flutter 2.0 SDK, you can easily share your Flutter apps and projects with other developers through GitHub to gather feedback, ideas, and contribute to making the framework better. For teams, no matter their size, the collaborative nature of Flutter 2.0 makes working together easier than with other frameworks and languages.
And whether you’re working solo or as part of a team, we’re here to make it simple to get started with our Dart/Flutter 2.0 SDK.
To ensure you can start building quickly, we’ve created detailed information in our Docs, including links to our Github repo, to help you install and configure the SDK. To access this information, sign up for our beta release in the form above.