Using Flutter to Develop an Application that will Fetch Data on Covid-19

Introduction

Traditionally, Android developers are required to program their app using Kotlin or Java, while iOS developers need to learn Swift. Facebook bridged this gap in 2013, by introducing the React Native framework to develop a cross-platform application along with native platform capabilities, while Google introduced its Flutter framework for the same in 2017. These new tech upgrades help developers to build the applications for multiple platforms, while keeping account of native OS features. Flutter helps build beautiful user interfaces, seemingly with the help of Google’s open source Android Studio IDE. Flutter code is directly compiled to the native platform’s ARM machine code, giving it an edge over React Native, which works on top of the native platform’s components. This article starts with an introduction to Flutter and the steps needed to install it. It then explains the Flutter project in Android Studio IDE and offers details on API-nCov2019 v2.0.0. After that, it explains the development of the Coronavirus tracker mobile application.

About Flutter

Flutter is an open source software development kit (SDK) created by Google for developing apps on multiple platforms like Android, iOS and desktop, using only one code base. This framework is built on Dart, a relatively new programming language, which gives it an edge over other tech in terms of quality, speed of development and the app’s performance.

Everything in Flutter that can be seen on a screen, such as structural elements like a navigation bar or button, stylistic elements like size and colour, or even layout elements like margin or padding, is built with simple components called widgets. Google has prepared a prebuilt library of material and Cupertino widgets, which can be used with customisations to eliminate the redundancy of creating basic native components.

Anyone can develop a Flutter application easily using the Visual Studio Code editor. However, Android developers prefer Android Studio, because it provides the benefit of using an Android simulator for debugging purposes. Xcode in MacOS enables the power to debug apps on the iOS emulator. Another option is to run the app in real mobile phones by enabling developer options and connecting the mobile to your system, using a USB cable.

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