> Tim was a director on Flutter until a few months ago and now works at Apple. > > That is, he has first hand knowledge of Flutter's numbers and now that he works for a competitor, no motivation to inflate Flutter's stats.

Being the ex director of a project means you will always have a reason to inflate the stats of that project, even if it is just for personal pride. I don't see how Hickson leaving Google means he doesn't still have part of his work life tied to the project regardless of employer.

> Without getting into specifics (which I cannot share), Flutter is wildly successful in the market place and continues to grow YoY.

That's cool, but this is just more of the same and more of what people seem surprised by. Numbers don't really matter unless they're visible and verifiable.

Sure, personal pride might cause someone to continue to inflate stats even after leaving a project. I can't speak for Tim or his motives here.

It's completely reasonable to continue to be skeptical of these claims without public numbers.

FWIW, I was surprised by the numbers myself but it's above my pay grade to share them publicly or discuss specifics.

Might be because Flutter is very popular outside your bubble.

I noticed a huge explosion of interest coming from third world countries prior to pandemic where money is tight.

China BigCos are adopting it.

If you go to hi-tech forums in India, lots of participation around flutter too.

That's two most populous nations in the world by large margin so you can keep looking for stats while they're chugging along :)

I guess it depends on how you measure popularity. If we’re counting new apps published on App/Play Store? Perhaps, even if still quite surprising . By user numbers? Completely unbelievable.