Mobile Apps & PWAs
An app on your customers' phones without building two apps, and without the app stores. Built for the phone first, with the desktop version included.
Almost everyone who finds you is on a phone, so that is where we start, not with a desktop layout squeezed down afterwards. And when you want a real app, with your icon on somebody's home screen, there is now a way to get one without commissioning two separate builds and waiting on two app stores. It is called a Progressive Web App, and most business owners have never had it explained to them.
The old way: build it twice, then a third time
For years an app meant exactly that. One build for iPhone, written in one language by one specialist. A second build for Android, written in another language by another specialist. Then a website on top, because people still search on Google. Three things to pay for, three to keep updated, and every change made three times. It is why so many small businesses looked at an app, got the quote, and quietly gave up.
What a PWA actually is, in plain English
A Progressive Web App is one website, built so well that a phone treats it like an app. Your customer visits it once, taps 'add to home screen', and from then on your icon sits on their phone next to WhatsApp and the banking app. It opens full screen with no browser bar. It keeps working when the signal drops. It can send notifications. The difference is that it is still one thing you own, at one address, updated once.
No app store, and why that is mostly good news
There is nothing to submit and nothing to be approved. You are not waiting a week for a reviewer to look at a bug fix, and you are not handing over a slice of every sale. When you change something, everyone has it the next time they open it. Nobody is stuck on an old version because they never updated. The trade-off is honest: you do not appear in a store search, so people find you the way they already do: Google, WhatsApp, a card, a sign on a vehicle.
Phone first, desktop included
We design for the smallest screen first, because that is the hardest one and the one most of your customers use. The desktop version then comes from the same build, and can be installed as an application on a laptop in exactly the same way. Your staff can have it in their taskbar without anything being installed by IT. One thing to build. One thing to pay for. One thing to keep right.
When you genuinely do need a native app
We will say so. If you need deep access to the hardware, say serious background location tracking, Bluetooth devices, heavy offline video, or Apple's in-app purchases for digital goods, then a native build is the right answer and we will tell you that rather than sell you something that falls short. For the overwhelming majority of businesses, it is not what you need.
Common questions
So is this a real app, or just a website?
To your customer it is an app. Their icon, full screen, no browser bar, works with a weak signal, can notify them. To you it is one website you own and update in one place. The only real difference is that it did not come from an app store, and most people never notice or ask.
Do I need a separate app for iPhone and Android?
No. That is the whole point. One build works on both, and on tablets and laptops as well. It is the single biggest cost difference between this and the traditional route, and it is the thing most business owners have never been told.
Does it work on iPhones?
Yes. iPhones support add-to-home-screen, full-screen apps, offline use and notifications. Two honest caveats. Android offers people an install button; iPhone does not, so an iPhone user has to tap Share and then Add to Home Screen, and some never will, which is worth designing a prompt around rather than assuming. And a handful of the more advanced tricks, mostly things happening in the background while the app is closed, arrive on Apple later than on Android or not at all. We will tell you plainly if anything you have asked for is one of them.
Will it work when the signal is bad?
That is one of the reasons to build it this way. Pages a customer has already opened stay available, and anything they fill in can wait and send itself when the signal returns. In this country that is not a nice-to-have.
How much cheaper is it, really?
You are paying for one build instead of two, and no store fees on sales. The bigger saving is the one nobody quotes for: every change afterwards is made once instead of three times, for as long as you own it.
Can my staff use it on a computer?
Yes, and it installs there the same way. It sits in the taskbar or the dock and opens in its own window like any other program. No installer, no IT approval, and it updates itself.