Choosing the Right Tool for iOS App Development: Flutter vs Swift

Swift: The Native Choice

Swift is an open-source, general-purpose programming language developed by Apple for building apps across iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. It’s designed to be modern, fast, safe, and interactive, making it easy for beginners to pick up. With Swift, you can build native iOS apps with a single codebase, leveraging Apple’s ecosystem and tools.

Flutter: The Cross-Platform Option

Flutter, on the other hand, is Google’s open-source UI toolkit for building cross-platform native user interfaces from a single codebase. It supports the development of apps that can run on web, desktop, and mobile platforms. Flutter is built with Dart, a client-optimized language for developing apps on any platform. Dart is terse, strongly typed, and object-oriented, with support for sound null safety.

Setting Up Your System

Before you start building an iOS app, you need to set up your system with the necessary tooling. For Flutter, you’ll need to:

• Download the installation bundle and extract it to the desired location.
• Install Xcode and choose your preferred IDE.

For Swift, all you need is a macOS and Xcode, making it slightly easier to set up.

Building an iOS App

Now that we’re set up, let’s build a starter app with both Flutter and Swift.

Flutter

flutter create my_app

Create a new project using the Android Studio IDE and select Flutter Application. This will generate a starter app that displays “Hello World” when run in a simulator.

Swift

import UIKit

class ViewController: UIViewController {
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        let label = UILabel(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 200, height: 21))
        label.center = CGPoint(x: 160, y: 285)
        label.textAlignment =.center
        label.text = "Hello World"
        self.view.addSubview(label)
    }
}

Create a new Xcode project and select App. This will generate a starter app that displays “Hello World” when run in a simulator.

Comparing the Learning Curve

When it comes to learning curve and approachability, Swift has an edge over Flutter because you don’t need to learn a new programming language to build native iOS apps. However, thanks to rich documentation and community support, both Flutter and Swift are relatively easy to learn.

Development Time

Flutter’s single codebase for all platforms and stateful hot-reload feature give it an edge over Swift when it comes to developer velocity and time to release a minimum viable product (MVP).

User Interface Creation

Both Flutter and Swift offer powerful tools for creating user interfaces.

Flutter

Flutter uses widgets, which are descriptions of parts of a user interface. For example:

MaterialApp(
  title: 'Hello World',
  home: Scaffold(
    appBar: AppBar(
      title: Text('Hello World'),
    ),
    body: Center(
      child: Text('Hello World'),
    ),
  ),
)

Swift

Swift uses SwiftUI, a declarative framework for building user interfaces for any Apple platform. For example:

import SwiftUI

struct ContentView: View {
    var body: some View {
        Text("Hello World")
    }
}

Porting a Native iOS App to Flutter

According to the Flutter docs, it’s possible to add Flutter to an existing iOS application. You can create a Flutter module in the root directory of your project and embed it into the iOS app using CocoaPods.

Key Takeaways

In conclusion, the choice between Flutter and Swift depends on your preference for and comfort level writing in Dart vs. Swift. If you want to build native iOS apps with a single codebase, Swift is the obvious choice. However, if you want to build cross-platform apps with a single codebase, Flutter is the way to go.