Mobile apps: native, cross-platform and everything around them.

Our usual recommendation

• iPhone and Android both needed: a cross-platform app, commonly React Native with TypeScript. One codebase and one team, with a result that feels like an ordinary app.
• One platform only, or a need for top performance or deep hardware access: native, with Swift for iOS or Kotlin for Android.
• Occasional use, or an idea still being tested: a web app first. See native, cross-platform or web for the comparison.

Other cross-platform tools exist and can be a good fit, especially if your team already uses them.

Things to decide early

• Offline use. Does it need to work without a signal, such as in a lift or basement? Offline needs data stored on the device and rules for resolving conflicts when it reconnects. It adds real effort.
• Notifications. What deserves a push notification? Too many get switched off. Permission rules and wording matter.
• Sign-in. Email, phone number or a social account? Each changes security and sign-up friction.
• Payments. Store rules affect how digital goods are sold in apps. Check them before designing the flow.
• Device features. Camera, location, biometrics and files each require permission prompts and careful explanation.
• Language. English and Traditional Chinese should be designed in from the start; text length changes layouts.

Testing on real devices

An app that works on one new phone can fail on an older one, on a small screen or with a large text setting. We test on a range of real devices and OS versions, check poor-signal behaviour and review accessibility settings. Which devices matter depends on your customers, so we start from who you actually serve rather than a global average.