Faster app builds. Finally!

The 10 year search for a way to build a single app that works on both iOS and Android equally well appears to be over. Flutter is here and it is changing our business.

I can throw so many techie code names at you - Xamarin, Cordova, React Native, Typescript, Nativescript - is that enough for you? All of these promised “write once, deploy anywhere“ but none lived up to the promise.

For 10 years we have been developing what are called “Native” apps. This has meant writing the app in one language for Apple iPhones and another for Android devices. Obviously this comes with an upfront cost - but our argument for Native has always been based on long-term savings and real-time performance. Two simple code-bases are better than one complicated unweildy one.

Never have we had the ability to write a single app without compromising either speed and responsiveness, or ease-of-maintenance. Until now.

We are currently developing our third app using Flutter. Flutter is Google’s “toolkit for building beautiful, natively compiled applications for mobile, web and desktop from a single codebase”. We have accomplished significantly reduced development time whilst still producing apps that look and behave as good as Native… and anyone who has talked to me about app development - ever - will know I have never said that before.

I won’t yet say it is the perfect choice for every app but there are a lot where it definitely will be. If your business still has folders full of paper; if your staff still need to come back into the office to do “the paperwork”; if your business processes haven’t been asssesed in the last 5 years then congratulations! You waited it out and you can reap these benefits.

As part of our transformation from Appfactory to Frontside Future we are offering a free 30 minute consultation and whiteboard session to review your business processes or app-idea and will provide you with real-world, honest feedback.

Daniel McKinnon