Do we need Android SDK , IOS SDK separately along with flutter SDK for flutter applications

Question

I'm new to flutter so I really wanted to know do we need android SDK, ios SDK along with flutter SDK to develop flutter applications? As flutter SDK converts code directly into native/machine code so why I am really curious to know if we need android SDK and ios sdk? Yes I know when we make android native applications We need Android SDK but do not know if we need it in flutter apps as well if we need it then what would be the role of android SDK and flutter SDK

Solution

Short answer Yes.

Reasons for this is that the flutter SDK only handles the flutter side of compilations such as Dart. technically each flutter app is inside of a native app Shell. flutter uses various native code modules under the hood to make the app work in all the supported platforms and provide Platform dependent functionality such as File System, Camera, etc...

for example, how file systems work in iOS and Android are different, so flutter uses separate native code to work with the file systems in those 2 OSes. So, to compile those two native codes, flutter needs each OSes SDKs such as iOS SDK and Android SDK.

Best example: https://github.com/flutter/plugins/tree/main/packages/path_provider

You can see how this plugin is implemented differently on each supported platforms.

Comments

[princesanjivy]

yes you do need, refer to this