Flutter Version 3.19 is Live – Explore What’s New!

The latest Flutter version 3.19, was released by the official team on the 15th of February, 2024. The upgrade comes with several promising features focused on revolutionizing the mobile app development best practices.

Some of the most noticeable new features with the Flutter update are Dart SDK for Gemini, scrolling improvements, animation style widgets, and more—the new version merges 1429 pull requests, boosting Flutter MVP development. The release notes of the Flutter SDK will help developers build immersive user interfaces hassle-free.

This blog thoroughly explores the latest additions and improvements with Flutter version 3.19.

Here are 12 New Features with Flutter Upgrade 3.19

 

1. AI Integration into Dart SDK

 The new version has released Google AI Dart SDK, which enables users to build generative AI into the Flutter mobile app. The AI model is powered by Gemini, which opens up exciting possibilities for app development projects with beta channel plugins. 

For example, companies can build text generation and summarization features using the Gemini AI with a stable channel. This widget is capable of enabling developers to create interactive user experiences and also powers the mobile app with trending functional features.

2. Scrolling Enhancements

The Flutter upgrade 3.19 provides several bug fixes with scrolling behavior enhancements. For example, two-finger dragging now provides several finger-agnostic scrolling. Simply put, users can configure the default scroll behavior with MultiTouchDragStrategy, which ensures personalized UX.

All in all, the scrolling enhancements can be listed as follows:

• The two-finger drags will enable smooth scrolling behavior.
• Bug fixes for unexpected behavior issues in SingleChildScrollView and ReorderableListView will help resolve multiple reported crashes.

3. Animation Style Widget

Thanks to the latest release, 3.19, you get an experimental widget that add fine-grained control over widget animations. Flutter developers can customize animation curves, delays, and several other factors for tailoring dynamic animations. 

This powers web app development projects with the ability to achieve more nuanced and expressive animations with immersive user interactions. 

4. Adaptive Switch

The latest Flutter update provides a handy accessibility feature with a visually distinct and interactive switch component. The new component can adapt to multiple text scaling settings, which improves accessibility for a diverse range of users. 

The new widget can adapt its outlook and behavior according to the platform, which streamlines app development cycles and deploys a consistent UX across diverse platforms. 

5. Accessibility and Text Field Enhancements

The Flutter 3.19 version comes with more apparent text field focus indicators and enhanced accessibility announcements. Developers can also implement custom text selection handles. This enhancement is concentrated on improving the Flutter app’s accessibility for physically challenged people.

The improved text selection, cursor placement capabilities, text field, and keyboard navigation automatically boost application accessibility.

6. Impeller Progress for Improved Rendering

The latest Flutter’s GPU-accelerated rendering engine optimizes the performances of mobile apps over both iOS and Android devices. You can witness the rendering boost of flutter apps made with 3.19 over various devices.

The performance enhancements in the impeller rendering engine are focused on providing smooth visuals and quick rendering. Flutter app users will experience enhanced responsiveness and application performance. 

7. API Enhancements

The API enhancements of the latest version of Flutter, 3.19, are Glyph Information and GPU tracing. Glyph information provides two new methods on dart:ui’s Paragraph object:

• getClosestGlyphInfoForOffset
• getGlyphInfoAt

Both methods will return an object of the new type GlyphInfo.

The latest Flutter engine now defines GPU times for all frames available in the timeline in debugging and profile builds. This is possible if the code is under impeller on Metal or on Vulkan-powered Android devices. The Metal works for all iOS, macOS, and Simulator.

 

The non-vulkan Android devices might fail to properly report the support for GPU timing queries. Developers can enable Impeller’s GPU tracing on such devices via a flag set in the AndroidManifest.xml file.

<meta-data
android:name="io.flutter.embedding.android.EnableOpenGLGPUTracing"
android:value="true" />

8. Windows Arm64 Processors Support (Experimental)

The latest Flutter upgrade can run apps on Windows devices with Arm64 processors. This enhancement ensures more incredible platform support and vast opportunities for Flutter app development. The new Flutter release allows the app to run on several hardware configurations with the Arm64 support integrations.

9. Introduces Deep Linking Web Validator Tool

Developers can now use a deep linking web validator tool for integrating deep links within the Flutter mobile app. The tool validates the website content and generates the necessary code that will help to reduce the code development time and also minimize errors. 

The validator tool will help seamlessly implement deep links into specific points in the Flutter mobile application. 

10. Performance Enhancements

Flutter 3.19 comes with several performance optimizations, but the two most noteworthy are:

• Specialization constants that offer an improved type interface and boost code generation.

• Backdrop filter speedups that power the developers with building smooth animations.

Performance enhancements help build interactive and fully-responsive mobile apps.

11. DevTools Updates

The latest version of the UI kit comes with multiple improvements in the Flutter Devtools. The new evolutions allow enhancements to the leak tracker with greater accuracy in the memory leak detection and management of Flutter-specific scenarios.

This provides developers with a streamlined process of identifying and resolving memory leaks for better app stability.

12. Flutter iOS Native Fonts

The latest upgrade allows integration of native iOS fonts directly into the Flutter apps. This provides the developers team with access to a massive range of fonts and improved visibility of the mobile app content over iOS devices. 

Direct integration of the iOS native fonts gives app users an authentic look and feel of the cross-platform mobile app.

Wrapping Up

That was all about the remarkable features available and breaking changes with the latest version of Flutter, 3.19. If you are developing any cross-platform mobile app, it is advisable to use the upgraded version of the UI kit for added support.

You can hire Flutter developers at JS Panther who stay tuned to emerging technology trends and framework version updates. Extend your team with skilled developers holding proven expertise in diverse technologies.