Although we don't profess to be app developers, those app developer's we've spoken to always state it's much harder to create an Android app compared to the dev tools provided for iOS.

Google has attempted to readdress this by creating a cross-platform app development toolkit, Flutter, which has been in beta development for many months and finally sees an official v1.0 launch.

What Flutter attempts to do is bring iOS and Android development into one framework enabling people to create an app without worrying about the UI elements and other OS-specific components required to publish your app. Focus on the functionality and let Flutter worry about how you compile an app for iOS or Android. Of course, you still get access to the native development tools provided by Apple, so you're not going to create an iOS app which will break App Store regulations.

Flutter is already in commercial used, powering Google's Ads app for iOS and Android and Google claims big brands are switching to Flutter to produce their cross-platform apps. You can see a showcase of Flutter-created apps here.

Whilst developing your app in Flutter, you can quickly preview the resulting app in a phone preview window, using both AndroidView and UIKitView to render an app preview.

Google is hoping to take Flutter to another level, enabling you to create Windows and Mac desktop apps from within the same development toolkit.