What’s new in Flutter 3.13: let’s discuss the top 8 new things

here we discuss major points that flutter provides in the new update

Shirsh Shukla
5 min readAug 17, 2023

In this article, we will explore the Flutter 3.13 — What’s New In Flutter. with each new update, Flutter consistently enhances the experience for both developers and users. Continuing this trend of progression, we now have a new update in Flutter 3.13. There are numerous additions and improvements packed into this update. Specifically, this update has a focus on improving performance, rendering, and developer tools.

So, without getting into further discussion, let’s dive into this article to explore eight important aspects that this update brings.

1) Textfield Scanning IOS

2) TwoDimensional Scrolling

3) Platform Adaptive Dialogs

4) Improved IOS Performance

5) Foldable Device Support

6) Android 14 Supported

7) Reduced rotation distortion on iOS

8) New DevTools features

Textfield Scanning IOS

Flutter 3.13 has a cool new feature. When you’re typing on TextField in iOS, something neat happens. Users will see a choice pop up automatically. They can use the device camera to find characters and put them in the text box. You can check out how it works in the gif below.

TwoDimensional Scrolling

In Flutter’s newest update, the Flutter team has added a base for creating widgets that can scroll in two ways. This comes with fresh classes like ChildVicinity for putting children in place, and TwoDimensionalChildDelegate for taking care of their arrangement.

You’ll also find TwoDimensionalScrollView as the foundation, and RenderTwoDimensionalViewport for arranging child elements. Plus, there’s an interesting new feature — diagonal scrolling. You can make it work using DiagonalDragBehavior. The Flutter team listened to users and used their ideas to make this happen. Now you can let your creativity flow in designing scrolling effects.

Platform Adaptive Dialogs

There’s a neat update in AlertDialog. They’ve added something called an “adaptive constructor” and a function called “showAdaptiveDialog.” These smart features automatically choose the right kind of dialog for your device. For instance, if you’re using an iPhone, it picks a style that suits iPhones best (CupertinoAlertDialog), and if you’re on an Android device, it goes for a style that fits Android (Material AlertDialog). So, when you use AlertDialog.adaptive(), it just knows what to do without you needing to worry about it. It’s like having dialogs that can change their looks to match your device!

Improved IOS Performance

In this new version, the Flutter team has worked on making Impeller perform even better on iOS. They achieved this by making various enhancements. Now, Impeller on iOS is not just quicker and smoother (they fixed the shader problem causing delays), but it’s also able to handle more tasks at once in some tests. For instance, in a test involving flutter/gallery transitions, it’s now taking around half the time to show a picture on the screen compared to how it was before with Skia. This goes to show that the Flutter team is really dedicated to making sure everything works nicely on iPhones and iPads.

Foldable Device Support

To make Flutter work better on foldable devices, the Flutter team has come up with a new tool. It’s called the FlutterView.display getter. This tool gives you info about the display, like its size, how clear it shows things, and how fast it refreshes. You can use it to make your apps fit foldable devices nicely. If you’re curious to see how it works, check out the setPreferredOrientations function — it’s an example of this new tool in action. This update shows that the Flutter team is keeping up with new devices and making Flutter work well on all kinds of screens.

Android 14 Supported

With the rollout of this new update, the Flutter team is thrilled to reveal that the framework now seamlessly integrates with Android 14/ API 34. While the team is diligently crafting enhancements for Android 14—such as the predictive back navigation feature—please know that rigorous testing has been carried out on this release using the latest Android SDK.

Flutter team commitment to resolving any related concerns is unwavering, and we eagerly welcome your input to help us fine-tune this experience.

Reduced rotation distortion on iOS

When an iOS device changes its screen orientation, Flutter apps used to show a bit of distortion that didn’t quite match the smooth rotation of native iOS apps. To improve this, the Flutter team has made certain adjustments that help minimize the distortion, making the transition between orientations look much smoother and more in line with how native iOS apps behave.

New DevTools features

The Flutter team has enhanced the performance and user-friendliness of DevTools. One notable change is the addition of an overflow menu on the navigation bar, which comes into play when the list of tabs cannot be shown all at once. This improvement aims to make navigating through tabs a smoother experience for users.

Apart from these eight updates, Flutter team has also undertaken significant tasks such as enhancing accessibility features, refining rendering, and addressing bugs. You can find all of these improvements in the latest update. I gathered this information by researching multiple websites. If you come across any incorrect or misinterpreted information, kindly bring it to my attention by commenting below.

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I am Shirsh Shukla, a creative Developer, and a Technology lover. You can find me on LinkedIn or maybe follow me on Twitter or just walk over my portfolio for more details. And of course, you can follow me on GitHub as well.

Have a nice day!🙂

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Shirsh Shukla
Shirsh Shukla

Written by Shirsh Shukla

SDE at Reliance Jio | Mobile Application Developer | Speaker | Technical Writer | community member at Stack Overflow | Organizer @FlutterIndore