How We Make Flutter Work with CallKit Call Directory

YEREVAN, Armenia - Feb. 16, 2023 - PRLog -- Are you planning to build an iOS video or voice chat app with a native UI? If so, you will need Apple's CallKit.

Introduced in 2016 (iOS 10), Apple CallKit is a framework used for integrating calls from third- party apps into the system. For example, popular VoIP apps like WhatsApp and Skype have a proper back-end, but they rely on the Apple CallKit to give the front end a native look and feel on Apple devices.

Simply put, the main objective of the Apple CallKit is to make calls feel like part of iOS.

Features of iOS CallKit

The CallKit not only allows the user to make outgoing calls and receive incoming calls on a native interface but also provides other useful features, such as:

• Locked and Unlocked State when receiving calls
• Calls within the VoIP app, directly in the Apple phone app, or via a link
• System-level integration features, such as Do-Not-Disturb
• Call blocking features
• Caller identification through extracting their name from the contact list
• Call Directory app extension to provide caller ID information
• User security and privacy

What's with CallKit on Flutter?

Being part of the iOS SDK, CallKit can be accessed from Flutter by interacting with native code. You need to connect a third-party plugin that encapsulates the Flutter interaction with iOS in order to use the framework's functionality. Or you can implement everything yourself, for example, this way:

CallKit Flutter solutions

Before we came up with this Flutter plugin for the integration of our Flutter application for VoIP calls with the system, our main goal was to preserve CallKit interfaces and architecture, have all the flexibility, and use the original documentation. The thing is the existing third-party solutions had certain issues. Those plugins used the CallKit API in their own API, losing the native feel, flexibility, and some features.

So our solution was based on moving CallKit to Dart, keeping all the mechanisms of interaction and the hierarchy of classes.

For more information check out our detailed blog post on how we make Flutter work with CallKit Call Directory (https://addevice.medium.com/how-we-make-flutter-work-with...).