Leveraging Apple's system APIs and frameworks

When you come from iOS development, you might need to find Flutter plugins that offer the same abilities as Apple's system libraries. This might include accessing device hardware or interacting with specific frameworks like HealthKit.

For an overview of how the SwiftUI framework compares to Flutter, see Flutter for SwiftUI developers.

Introducing Flutter plugins

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Dart calls libraries that contain platform-specific code plugins, short for "plugin package". When developing an app with Flutter, you use plugins to interact with system libraries.

In your Dart code, you use the plugin's Dart API to call the native code from the system library being used. This means that you can write the code to call the Dart API. The API then makes it work for all platforms that the plugin supports.

To learn more about plugins, see Using packages. Though this page links to some popular plugins, you can find thousands more, along with examples, on pub.dev. The following table does not endorse any particular plugin. If you can't find a package that meets your needs, you can create your own or use platform channels directly in your project. To learn more, check out Writing platform-specific code.

Adding a plugin to your project

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To use an Apple framework within your native project, import it into your Swift or Objective-C file.

To add a Flutter plugin, run flutter pub add package_name from the root of your project. This adds the dependency to your pubspec.yaml file. After you add the dependency, add an import statement for the package in your Dart file.

You might need to change app settings or initialization logic. If that's needed, the package's "Readme" page on pub.dev should provide details.

Flutter Plugins and Apple Frameworks

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Use Case Apple Framework or Class Flutter Plugin
Access the photo library PhotoKitusing the Photos and PhotosUI frameworks and UIImagePickerController image_picker
Access the camera UIImagePickerController using the .camera sourceType image_picker
Use advanced camera features AVFoundation camera
Offer In-app purchases StoreKit in_app_purchase[1]
Process payments PassKit pay[2]
Send push notifications UserNotifications firebase_messaging[3]
Access GPS coordinates CoreLocation geolocator
Access sensor data[4] CoreMotion sensors_plus
Make network requests URLSession http
Store key-values @AppStorage property wrapper and NSUserDefaults shared_preferences
Persist to a database CoreData or SQLite sqflite
Access health data HealthKit health
Use machine learning CoreML google_ml_kit[5]
Recognize text VisionKit google_ml_kit[5:1]
Recognize speech Speech speech_to_text
Use augmented reality ARKit ar_flutter_plugin
Access weather data WeatherKit weather[6]
Access and manage contacts Contacts contacts_service
Expose quick actions on the home screen UIApplicationShortcutItem quick_actions
Index items in Spotlight search CoreSpotlight flutter_core_spotlight
Configure, update and communicate with Widgets WidgetKit home_widget

  1. Supports both Google Play Store on Android and Apple App Store on iOS. ↩︎

  2. Adds Google Pay payments on Android and Apple Pay payments on iOS. ↩︎

  3. Uses Firebase Cloud Messaging and integrates with APNs. ↩︎

  4. Includes sensors like accelerometer, gyroscope, etc. ↩︎

  5. Uses Google's ML Kit and supports various features like text recognition, face detection, image labeling, landmark recognition, and barcode scanning. You can also create a custom model with Firebase. To learn more, see Use a custom TensorFlow Lite model with Flutter. ↩︎ ↩︎

  6. Uses the OpenWeatherMap API. Other packages exist that can pull from different weather APIs. ↩︎