Welcome

Thank you for putting your faith in Flutter in Action. This book is about making mobile apps for smart phones. Today, 'smart phones' are just called 'phones', and we hardly every use them to talk. In fact, its estimated that we spend almost 90% of time on mobile devices looking at apps.

Humans, as it turns out, are entitled, emotional, hard to please, and all around more complicated than computers and software. Software is elegant, predictable, and (unfortunately), hard to make well. It's our job to take on this hard task, and deliver beautiful products to the people with impossible standards in ivory towers. Like the artist, we'll never be able to produce something that's up to these standards. Unlike the artist, millions of people will still insist on using our work, despite complaining about it. This tenacity and dedication is what makes us heroes.

Like all heroes, we must be resourceful and smart. The tools we choose to leverage can set us apart. John Henry was just a man without his hammer. The Greeks may have never won the (mythological) war with Troy without their Trojan Horse. Yuri Gagarin changed the landscape of human possibility because he had the best technology.

That's why Flutter is important. It's the first tool that lets us create applications with native -quality experiences for both major platforms at astonishing speed. We can leverage this tool to be the best mobile developers that we can be.