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 or MapKit.

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

Introducing Flutter plugins

Dart calls libraries that contain platform-specific code plugins. 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 need, you can create your own or use platform channels directly in your project. To learn more, see Writing platform-specific code.

Adding a plugin to your project

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

Use Case	Apple Framework or Class	Flutter Plugin
Access the photo library	PhotoKit using the Photos and PhotosUI frameworks 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_purchase1
Process payments	PassKit	pay2
Send push notifications	UserNotifications	firebase_messaging3
Access GPS coordinates	CoreLocation	geolocator
Access sensor data4	CoreMotion	sensors_plus
Embed maps	MapKit	google_maps_flutter
Make network requests	URLSession	http
Store key-values	@AppStorage property wrapper NSUserDefaults	shared_preferences
Persist to a database	CoreData or SQLite	sqflite
Access health data	HealthKit	health
Use machine learning	CoreML	google_ml_kit5
Recognize text	VisionKit	google_ml_kit5
Recognize speech	Speech	speech_to_text
Use augmented reality	ARKit	ar_flutter_plugin
Access weather data	WeatherKit	weather6
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