5 Steps to hiring the best Flutter App Development Company

5 Steps to hiring the best Flutter App Development Company
flutter app development services
Flutter app development can be placed at the forefront in today’s technology scenario where every competition is juggling with application development to develop something unique and attention-grabbing. The rise of the Flutter framework is generating immense opportunities for Flutter developers with organizations choosing Flutter for app development. Flutter app development companies are also finding a strong foothold in the industry owing to their growing demand. The post-deployment phase, marketing, and other services make a Flutter application development company a viable option in today’s scenario where the app performance as well the as the user experience plays a vital role in the success of any application.

Why Choose Flutter?

Flutter has emerged as a great framework for application development in the highly cluttered app development ecosystem. It is a widely used cross-platform application development framework that allows developers to use one codebase for developing the app for different platforms. Also, selecting Flutter can be beneficial for small companies such as startups that deal with a budget crunch. Statistics suggest that more than 500k apps have been developed using Flutter and it is counted as one of the most wanted frameworks for UI development.

Benefits of Flutter App Development Company

Flutter app Development Company or service brings in many benefits including:
  • Access to the latest technology, tools, and updates
  • Integration of innovative technologies like Machine Learning
  • Best development practices
  • High-level customization
  • Integration of the latest technology trends and innovative features
  • Post-deployment and maintenance support
  • Maximum security
  • Easy upgradation
  • 24X7 support and consulting
  • Supporting services such as marketing and UX
  • Competition analysis and performance analytics
  • Adapting to the latest industry trends
Hiring Flutter development services saves time and resources in getting UI, marketing, and other experts on board, enhancing overall productivity. A great Flutter app development company can expedite the entire development time by using different tools to shorten the time-to-market. A faster launch ahead of the competitors will offer ample opportunities to market the company and capture a large market segment.

How to Choose the Best Flutter Application Development Company?

A systematic approach to value and analyze each company and setting criteria to filter out the un-eligible companies can certain the way for that one company that is beneficial in terms of cost-efficiency, application performance, and market competency. This filtering process should be conducted keeping multiple business-related aspects into consideration such as business goals, target audience, and budget. Here is a comprehensive list of steps that can be followed by any organization to partner with the best Flutter application development company.
flutter application development
1. Make a list of all the flutter app development companies>
We have evolved as a connected ecosystem where one can easily find varied channels to collect the names of https://www.biz4solutions.com/blog/best-practices-to-ease-out-flutter-app-development/. Referrals and recommendations should top the list as you get the proof-of-work with the recommendation. Then comes the internet search which can easily yield the name of the companies offering flutter app development. The third is a search on job portals and other professional websites. In this age of the internet, it is easy to reach out to Flutter development companies as well as individual Flutter developers. Companies can announce the vacancy of a third-party offering Flutter development services and engage with the applicants.
2. Verify authenticity
Conducting a background check can be done in many phases. A company website would be the ideal place to start. Organizations can scan the website to find out the work and experience of the company. The availability of testimonials from different clients can be an added advantage. You might even take a step ahead and connect with some of their clients to check on their work. The size and market situation of the company also holds great significance when it comes to partnership. The company should have the potential to engage with companies of your size. The third-party offering Flutter application development should house a team of experts with experience in the relevant domain. Pay emphasis on their internet presence. A little research may reveal the company’s engagement with online customers and their feedback. Choose to go- over the negative feedback and conduct research to find out the truth of such feedback. With all these searches in place, you will arrive at a restricted list of a few names.
3. Ask for a portfolio
To acquire complete information about a company, connect with them and ask for a portfolio. Jumping to face-to-face interviews at this point might just waste time. Getting a portfolio over a phone call or mail will strike off all the companies with irrelevant experience. A portfolio will give a sneak peek at their past work which holds significance in application development. One can be focused to find a company with experience in a similar project. For instance, in case there is an eCommerce app to be developed, go for a company that is into eCommerce app development. Check out the performance of the eCommerce apps developed by them to get an idea of their work.
4. Seal your requirements
Now that we have a classified list of potential mobile application development partners, seal the requirements that you would need to discuss. The requirements sheet should at least answer these questions:
  • What is the actual product going to look like?
  • What would be the features of the app?
  • Who is the target customer?
  • What is the timeline for release?
  • What is the budget?
  • What business objectives need to be achieved?
  • How are you going to make a profit from the app?
  • What will be the subscription models, if any?
  • What technologies and third-party apps should be integrated into the app?
These are some of the relevant questions that the stakeholders need to discuss with the management and business team. Finalize and record every piece of information before heading towards collaboration with Flutter app development services.
5. Connect one-on-one
This is the deciding step where we filter out the companies unfit for any of our criteria. Here are some of the important aspects you can enquire about.
  • Experience in the Flutter frameworks
  • Flutter enjoys the support of many application development frameworks that fasten application development and shorten the time-to-market. The flutter application development company should have expertise in these frameworks. It would be great if they could suggest frameworks for developing your application and reasons to support the choice. Do not get swayed by mere knowledge of the frameworks and count on the experience.
  • The potential team you are going to connect with
  • The representative will be the face of the company and they will only put the best foot forward. It would be a wise decision to request to connect with the development team. Ensure that you get dedicated Flutter app developers throughout the developmental cycle. Find out the expertise and experience of the Flutter professionals. For you, the top Flutter app developer should be one with similar experience in application development. Also, enquire about the point of contact. The developer being the point of contact can be a bonus point for any company.
  • Other services
  • Choosing the Flutter framework and hiring developers for flutter app development solves just one problem. There are many other aspects such as security, maintenance, marketing, and UX. What if all these services come from the same Flutter development services? It would be icing on the top, saving your time and energy in searching for other third parties for different services. Ask about user-related services such as user testing and UX specialists. Also, enquire about the company’s take on the security and scalability of the flutter apps. Efforts should be made to sort the companies that offer all these services along with Flutter application development to forge a union likely to grow in the future. Gain insight and clarity on post-deployment services like maintenance and upgrades. Give preference to the price per work such as bug fixes post-deployment. Record all the important details in agreements to take guarantee of the commitment.
These steps when executed serially can help you arrive at a profitable conclusion. This again can serve as a restricted list and the stakeholders can sit across with the business and technology heads to plan the execution of these steps in a processed manner.

Conclusion

Flutter undoubtedly is one of the cutting-edge frameworks used for developing highly responsive applications. These steps have been designed to let you overcome all the bottlenecks in selecting a Flutter mobile application development company best for your use case. The next step can be sealing the deal and heading with the development of robust and responsive Flutter applications to get a competitive edge in the industry.

What are the Key Strategies and Best Practices that simplify Flutter App Development?

What are the Key Strategies and Best Practices that simplify Flutter App Development?
flutter app developer
Flutter, the Google-developed open-source software development kit for UI creation has gained a lot of traction amongst the community of software developers. Flutter is a great option for cross-platform app development using a single codebase. Flutter app development caters to myriad platforms including iOS, Android, Linux, Windows, the web, macOS, & Google Fuchsia. And, the best part is that the same business logic and UI can be reused across various platforms.
The Flutter framework comes with numerous offerings including reduced development time, high customization, & a superior quality animation. However, to get the best results out of this framework, developers need to follow the right strategies and best practices.
This post discusses the key strategies and best practices for Flutter app development that will reduce coding efforts and development time. These practices will also enhance the code’s quality, maintainability, readability, and productivity.

Flutter App Development: Best Practices to Follow

flutter app development

Creating a clearly-defined App Architecture

A clearly-defined architecture is a crucial prerequisite as it makes Flutter app development a breeze. Flutter app developers enjoy the advantages of an easy learning curve as compared to native app development frameworks. A developer needs to learn only one programming language, Dart, to code & design Flutter mobile apps for the iOS and Android platforms. However, if you fail to create the proper architecture, things can get messed up. Take a look at the MVVM architecture of a Flutter app.

Best Naming Practices

Follow these practices when you name the convention. Keep the extension name, classes, etc. in UpperCamelCase; the names of directories, libraries, etc. in snake_case which means lowercase with underscores; and the name parameters & variables in lowerCamelCase.

Refactoring the Code into “Widgets” instead of “Methods”

There are two ways to refactor Text Widgets. The code can be either refactored into “Methods” or “Widgets.” For Flutter app development, refactoring the code into Widgets is a better option to go with. This approach will allow you to utilize the handy offerings of the entire widget lifecycle. If you refactor the code into “Methods,” there might be unnecessary rebuilds even when there are no modifications inside the ‘buildHello.’
Contrarily, if you refactor the code into widgets, rebuilds take place only when there are changes inside the widget. This way, one can avoid needless builds and improve the performance of a Flutter application. Besides, this methodology will help a Flutter app developer to reap the benefits of all the widget class optimizations offered by the Flutter framework. Also, this approach of code refactoring involves fewer lines of code and makes the main widget easier to understand.

UI Component Rebuilding with Flutter BloC Widgets

Flutter BloC Widgets help you in rebuilding UI components while responding to various state changes during Flutter app development. The key classes offered by the Flutter_bloc package are BlocBuilder, BlocWidgetListener, BlocProvider, & BlocConsumer.
BlocBuilder reduces the overall boilerplate code requirement and as such, simplifies the process of building/rebuilding the child subtree during a state change. BlocWidgetListener helps you in handling functionalities and situations that are needed once during every state change. BlocProvider allows you to build new blocs and close them simultaneously; one can access them from the subtree that remains. BlocConsumer needs to be used when it is essential to rebuild the UI. This widget can be also used for executing reactions to the modifications made in the state of the bloc syntax.

Creating a Build Function that is Pure

It’s important to create a build function that is pure – free of unnecessary stuff. Hence, you must remove all those operations from the build process that may negatively affect the rebuild performance. If the build function is pure, the UI rebuilding process will be highly productive and this process will not require too many resources as well.

Thorough Understanding of the Concept of Constraints

A Flutter app developer must have a thorough understanding of the thumb rule of the Flutter framework layout. This rule defines how the ‘constraints’ go down and the ‘sizes’ go up and how the ‘parent’ sets the position.
What are constraints? Well, a widget gets a set of constraints from its parent. A constraint is formed by a set of these four aspects – A minimum & maximum height and a minimum & maximum width. Thereafter, the widget examines its list containing the children and sends across a command. This command asks the children widgets about their constraints. Here, the constraints can be different for each child widget. The widget then asks every child widget about the size it wishes to be. Now, the children are positioned one after the other and the parent is notified about their size. The size remains within the range defined by the original constraints.
However, there exists a limitation. For instance, there’s a child widget placed inside a parent widget, and the size has to be decided. Here, it is not possible for the widget to decide a size on its own. The widget’s size has to be within the constraints that were set by its parent.

Avoiding the Usage of Streams Unless Necessary

Streams are quite powerful and most development teams tend to use them. Nevertheless, ‘streams’ usage comes with its own set of downsides. If you are using streams and your implementation process is below average, you are likely to consume more CPU space as well as memory. And, if by chance the developers forget to close the streams, memory leaks will take place. So, avoid using streams unless it is absolutely essential for your Flutter app development project. Instead of using streams, you may employ a ChangeNotifier for reactive UI; this will solve the problem of memory consumption. Also, you can use Bloc library for more advanced features. This library helps you to utilize your resources in a more efficient way and provides an easy-going interface for creating the reactive user interface.

Employing the “Dart Code Metrics”

Employing the “Dart Code Metrics” is a tried and tested practice for improving the quality of a Flutter mobile app. This is a static tool for analyzing the code; it helps developers to monitor as well as improvise the code quality. For executing this process, you need to carry out certain tasks. Use single widgets for each file and extract callbacks. Avoid using the Border.all constructor and try not to return the widgets.

Employing the const Constructor

Using the const constructor widgets is highly recommended for Flutter app development. This practice will help you considerably minimize the tasks that need to be carried out in the garbage collector. This practice may seem insignificant at the beginning. But as the app gets bigger in size or there’s a view that gets rebuilt quite often; it proves immensely beneficial. Moreover, const declarations turn out to support the hot-reloading feature. However, you must avoid using const keywords unless needed.

Adopting Apt Testing Approaches

It’s important to test every critical functionality. And, an automated testing approach is recommended. This is because cross-platform apps target several platforms. So, automated testing will save extensive time and effort needed for testing functionality across all those targeted platforms, after modifications have been made. Also, ensure that you follow the testing strategy of 100% code coverage. But, if in case you are not able to conduct 100% testing owing to time and budgetary constraints, make sure that you test the critical functionalities of the app. Unit tests & widget tests are some testing methodologies used for Flutter app development. Integration tests are also necessary; this way, you can run tests on emulators or physical devices.

Final Thoughts:

I hope you are now well versed in the best practices to follow and the key strategies to consider while developing an app with Flutter. The aforementioned practices and strategies are sure to simplify complex processes for developers and enhance the productivity of the software development process altogether. However, if you are a novice in software development, it’s advisable to seek technical assistance from an experienced and proficient Flutter app development company for your upcoming project.