Flutter-Tizen
Tizen 9.0 Features – Flutter Tizen
Flutter on Tizen: Expanding the Cross-Platform Frontier
Flutter is one of the most popular cross-platform UI frameworks, enabling app development across Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows, Google Fuchsia, and the web. With the launch of the Flutter-Tizen project, this powerful framework is now available for Tizen, allowing developers to build high-performance apps tailored for Samsung devices, particularly smart TVs.
Building a Native App Environment with Flutter-Tizen
Tizen provides a native Flutter development environment by implementing a dedicated Flutter embedder. This embedder bridges the Flutter engine with the Tizen platform, enabling essential functionalities such as rendering surfaces and event loops. It offers developers a seamless experience building apps optimized for Tizen hardware.
Rapid Version Upgrades and Flutter Engine Compatibility
To ensure compatibility with the latest Flutter engine releases, Flutter-Tizen supports fast version upgrades—typically within three months of a new release. This is made possible by separating the engine and embedder, allowing for agile updates and reducing development downtime.
Tizen SDK Integration and Developer Tools
Tizen-specific features are integrated into the Flutter SDK through an extended CLI tool, supporting app packaging, Tizen Emulator usage, and app type selection. Additionally, Tizen ensures full support for Flutter’s Hot Reload and DevTools, enhancing developer productivity. Debugging across Dart and native Tizen layers is also supported, streamlining the development and testing process.
Key Features for Commercial App Development
To support real-world applications, Flutter-Tizen provides over 15 ported plugins for frequently used functionalities. It also includes support for embedding Flutter Views within existing Tizen native apps, and a platform binding library enabling direct Dart-to-C/C# API calls—essential for building robust, integrated services.
Media and OTT App Support
Tizen offers a video player based on its native TV platform, supporting DRM-protected content—a crucial requirement for OTT services. This allows third-party service providers to bring commercial-grade streaming apps to Samsung TVs using Flutter.
Firebase Support and Cloud Integration
Flutter-Tizen supports key Firebase services, including Database and Storage, addressing the most common cloud-based needs in app development. This allows developers to build connected applications with real-time data syncing and cloud storage capabilities.
Tizen-Specific Plugins for Device Integration
To harness the full potential of Tizen devices, over 10 dedicated plugins have been developed for commonly used features. These plugins enable access to hardware-specific capabilities, providing developers with the tools needed to create feature-rich Tizen apps.
Strengthening Developer Engagement Through Open Source
Flutter-Tizen is actively developed as an open-source project, encouraging community participation through GitHub. Samsung listens to developer feedback and selects feature items accordingly, fostering collaboration and accelerating innovation within the ecosystem.
Promoting Tizen Plugins via the Flutter Ecosystem
By publishing Tizen plugins on pub.dev, Flutter’s official package manager, the project helps promote Flutter-Tizen to a broader developer audience. Dozens of plugins specifically built for Tizen have been made available, boosting visibility and encouraging developers to build for the Tizen platform.