The Flutter 2.10 stable release was released today, bringing support for building Windows apps to stable state for the first time. With a strong push from Google, Flutter has come a long way over the past few years with the goal of creating the cross-platform software framework that developers dream of. Flutter develops apps for Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, macOS, and the web, all with a shared codebase and visual design.
Today marks a major expansion of that vision, with the first release of support for Windows as an app target, enabling Windows developers to benefit from the same productivity and power that mobile developers have always enjoyed, Google said on Thursday.
Flutter apps on Windows can use most of the common Flutter frameworks on iOS and Android, but they can also use Win32, COM, and Windows Runtime APIs as needed. Google has also updated some common Flutter plugins to support Windows, such as camera, file_picker, and shared_preferences – these plugins have supported the desktop platform for a while, but Google now considers them production-ready.
Microsoft’s Fluent Design is also implemented in Flutter, so Flutter apps on Windows don’t have to stick out like a thumb. Google also noted Microsoft’s contribution to this work, saying: Several teams at Microsoft contributed to today’s announcement. In particular, we would like to express our thanks to the Fluent design team for their contribution to Flutter apps on Windows. icons. The fluentui_system_icons package has been awarded Flutter’s favorite status as a signal of its quality.