Flutter has burst onto the mobile scene as a powerhouse for building iOS apps with native-like performance.
Developed by Google, Flutter is a cross-platform UI framework that lets you build iOS and Android apps from a single codebase without sacrificing speed or design. For busy startup founders and project managers, this means faster development cycles, lower costs, and the ability to launch on multiple platforms simultaneously – all while delivering the polished feel iPhone users expect.
By the end of this post, you’ll see why so many companies – from scrappy startups to tech giants – are turning to Flutter for their iOS development, and how a Flutter expert team could help you do the same.
Top 10 iOS Apps Built with Flutter
- Google Ads. Google’s official Ads mobile app (for advertisers to monitor and edit their ad campaigns) is built with Flutter. It has a complex dashboard and real-time data, yet runs flawlessly on iOS, showing how Flutter handles enterprise-grade features. Google chose Flutter to deliver a consistent, high-performance experience across iPhone and Android devices without maintaining two codebases.
- Google Pay. The popular digital wallet app Google Pay also leverages Flutter for its iOS version. Security and speed are paramount in this niche, and Flutter doesn’t disappoint – the app delivers quick, seamless transactions with the polished feel iOS users are used to. With Flutter, Google can roll out a uniform feature set and UI on Android and iOS, ensuring that Apple users get the same smooth experience and robust security updates as Android users.
- Alibaba (Xianyu). The global e-commerce giant turned to Flutter to power parts of its mobile platform, notably the Xianyu second-hand marketplace app. For an app serving tens of millions of shoppers, performance and reliability on iOS are non-negotiable. Flutter enabled Alibaba to streamline development for iOS and Android simultaneously while guaranteeing a uniform look and feel across platforms.
- BMW (My BMW App). The luxury automaker BMW uses Flutter for its flagship My BMW companion app, which gives vehicle owners control and information at their fingertips. BMW had previously faced a divergence between its iOS and Android apps’ design and features, so in 2018, it tried Flutter to unify its development. The result was the My BMW App (launched in 2020) delivered simultaneously to iOS and Android users in 47 countries with a single, cohesive codebase.
- Nubank. Nubank, the world’s largest digital bank by number of customers, chose Flutter to build its mobile banking app. Serving over 48 million users, Nubank needed a solution that could rapidly scale features on both iOS and Android without doubling the effort. Flutter’s single codebase was the answer, enabling Nubank’s team to deliver a secure, responsive banking experience on iPhones in lockstep with the Android version.
- eBay Motors. When eBay decided to create a dedicated app for car enthusiasts (eBay Motors) in 2018, they wanted it to have all the rich functionality of the main eBay app and a native feel on both platforms. Instead of building separate iOS and Android apps, eBay used Flutter as the cross-platform solution. The iOS version offers an intuitive interface for browsing and listing vehicles, complete with community interactions and even an AI-driven Fitment Finder tool for auto parts.
- Reflectly. Reflectly is a popular mindfulness journaling app that uses AI to help users reflect on their day. Visually stunning with fluid animations and a clean interface, Reflectly’s iOS app is built with Flutter. The choice of Flutter allowed a tiny team to punch above its weight – incredibly, just two developers built Reflectly’s initial cross-platform app in about 2.5 months. This rapid development cycle (with Flutter’s fast iteration and rich pre-built widgets) meant they could launch on iOS quickly and start gaining users.
- Philips Hue lets users control their smart lights, which is another, perhaps unexpected, Flutter-built iOS app. Managing dozens of lights in real time with sliders, color pickers, and timers can be demanding, but Flutter easily handles these interactive elements. Philips delivered a consistent user experience on iOS and other platforms, so whether you’re on your iPhone or iPad, the interface to adjust your home’s lighting is intuitive and uniform.
- Hamilton. Even Broadway has embraced Flutter – the official Hamilton app was built with Flutter to serve its dedicated fanbase. The Hamilton app on iOS provides news, daily lotteries for show tickets, exclusive videos, karaoke tracks, merchandise store integration, and more. By choosing Flutter, the developers could create this feature-rich app once and deploy it on iOS and Android, ensuring all fans get the same content and polished experience.
- Groupon. Millions of deal-hunters use Groupon’s mobile apps, and interestingly, Groupon has utilized Flutter to enhance its mobile offerings. With over 50 million downloads, Groupon’s app comes in two flavors – a consumer app for shoppers and a merchant app for businesses, both powered by Flutter from a single codebase. On iOS, the Groupon app benefits from Flutter’s fast rendering to display listings, maps, and purchase flows quickly, giving users a snappy browsing experience for deals.
Approximate example for a mid-sized app; actual figures will vary.
As shown above, a Flutter approach can cut the timeline and budget significantly. Businesses benefit from needing a smaller team to deliver both an iOS and Android app, and QA/testing efforts are also reduced (one code to test, not two). Moreover, updates and bug fixes are synchronized – you don’t have to fix an issue in two different codebases, so your iOS app gets updates as fast as your Android app.
To drive this home, let’s look at a quick feature breakdown of three Flutter-built iOS apps from our list, highlighting their UI complexity, performance, and cross-platform reach:
All three apps achieved near-native performance on iOS while maintaining feature parity across platforms.
Flutter for iOS? It’s Already Here
Flutter is already powering some of the best iOS app experiences. It’s not “coming soon” or limited to small apps – it’s here, driving real ROI for businesses. Suppose you aim to build a new iOS app (or revamp an existing one). In that case, Flutter offers a way to deliver native-level performance, consistent design, and faster development — all in one package. The apps we covered are just the tip of the iceberg; many more are adopting Flutter as the secret weapon for mobile success. By partnering with a seasoned Flutter expert team, you can harness this technology to create the next standout iOS app – faster and more cost-effectively than you might have thought possible.
What Makes These Apps Stand Out?
Each of these apps proves that Flutter can deliver on the promises of speed, beauty, and productivity for iOS development.
Performance and Speed
Flutter is engineered for high performance. Its Dart code is AOT-compiled to native ARM, and it uses a fast GPU-accelerated rendering engine (Skia) – meaning Flutter apps can run at 60fps (or even 120fps on ProMotion displays), just like fully native apps. The result is snappy interactions and smooth animations on iPhones.
Design and UI Consistency
One of Flutter’s superpowers is delivering a consistent UI/UX across platforms. Flutter renders its own controls and designs, so the app looks and behaves exactly as intended on iPhones, without quirks or deviations from its Android counterpart. For product owners, this means your brand and user experience stay uniform.
Business Impact
For decision-makers, the appeal of Flutter often boils down to faster time-to-market and lower development costs, without compromising on quality. Using Flutter means you’re effectively building one app instead of two. This can significantly reduce the engineering effort needed to launch on iOS. For a startup, this could mean launching your iOS app months earlier than if you went native-only, potentially capturing market share or revenue sooner.
To illustrate the efficiency, consider the comparison below between traditional native development and Flutter for a hypothetical iOS+Android project:
