Flutter 3.13 speeds rendering on iOS

Flutter, Google’s open source framework for multi-platform UI development, ushers in faster graphics and 2D scrolling with the latest release, Flutter 3.13, announced August 16.

Improvements to the new Impeller graphics renderer boost rendering performance on iOS, offering lower latency and higher average throughput. Impeller now is available in preview for macOS and already has been turned on by default for iOS. There still is no official preview period set for Impeller on Android, but it is anticipated for later this year.

Flutter 3.13 contains a foundation for building widgets that scroll in two dimensions. This includes classes to build with, such as ChildVicinity, representing the relative position of children in two dimensions, and TwoDimensionalChildDelegate. Scrolling in two dimensions comes with new interactions, including diagonal scrolling. Further, new slivers allow developers to compose unique scrolling effects. SliverMainAxisGroup and SliverCrossAxisGroup, for example, support arranging multiple slivers together.

Improving support for foldable devices, Flutter 3.13 adds an engine API to retrieve properties of a display. A new getter FlutterView.display returns a Display object, which reports the physical size, device pixel ratio, and the refresh rate of the display.

Material Framework improvements have been made to offer more platform adaptability, more customization, and new capabilities. It is now easier to customize the design of Material widgets. For example, developers now are able to use the error property for InputDecoration to customize the error widget shown on text fields.

Flutter 3.13 also includes Dart 3.1, featuring minor updates and API adjustments to further use class modifiers introduced in Dart 3.0. Flutter 3.13 follows Flutter 3.10, published in May. Installation instructions for Flutter can be found on the project website.