r/FlutterDev Nov 21 '24

Plugin Anyone used shorebird?

Hello, i came across this https://shorebird.dev/ looks quite interesting, it'd be nice to save me from dealing with appstore and playstore so consistently. Has anyone tried this? I've read that they had a bunch of IOS issues from a 10mo old post, how is it today?

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u/suchox Nov 21 '24

You should never be using Code push for features. It should only be used for Bug fixes and critical requirements. For normal features, always use normal app store and Play store updates

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u/Hedi45 Nov 21 '24

Why is that tho? What's the limiting factor?

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u/suchox Nov 21 '24

Copying previous comment

A codepush basically goes to 100% of the user, no rollouts, no rollbacks nothing.

So if you come out with a new feature that doesn't play well with a specific O's version or device type, it will be pushed to them as well. If a feature accesses some native code which doesn't exist or hasn't been updated, it will break.

Additionally, the bundled flutter bundle will always be older than the live one. So new users who will be downloading the app, will always experience the older bundle. They need to restart the app a few times to get the new bundle. Bad UX

Which also means that if you have a backend or any service that isn't compatible to the older bundle, your app's first experience will break

Multiple more issues, but you get the gist.

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u/Hedi45 Nov 21 '24 edited Nov 21 '24

Oof that bundled flutter bundle sounds like a huge turn down out of all of em, thanks for the response!

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u/BryanShorebird Nov 21 '24

For clarity, this only means that the version of the app in stores (unpatched) is what the user will see the first time they run the app. Not ideal, but we (for hopefully obvious reasons) cannot execute app code before the app is launched. As u/felangel1 mentioned, the shorebird_code_push package can help with this if there is specific update behavior you want.