Apps for iOS and Android, native or cross-platform, argued rather than assumed.
Most of what makes a mobile app hard is not the screen. It is the operating system treating your app as a guest: background limits, a permission prompt the user can decline, a store review that can reject a build for a reason it will not fully explain. We build for that, not around it.
What this is
The first real decision is native or cross-platform, and it should be argued from what the app actually does, not defaulted. Swift and SwiftUI on iOS, Kotlin and Jetpack Compose on Android, give full access to the platform: background audio, ARKit, a custom Bluetooth peripheral, the kind of thing React Native or Flutter bridges to unevenly or not at all. If the app is mostly forms, lists and a feed, cross-platform gets both stores built once and is the right call. We size that decision against the screens that actually touch hardware, not against a house preference for one stack.
Most of what a store review actually checks has nothing to do with whether the app works. Apple's review can bounce a build for a missing privacy nutrition label, a permission requested without an in-context explanation, or a login screen that does not also offer Sign in with Apple when a third-party login is present. None of that shows up in a demo. We write the review notes and the metadata knowing which of these an app has hit before, and treat the submission as part of the build rather than a formality after it.
A mobile app is rarely the whole system. It is usually the field half of something that also has a backend, an admin view, or both, and the interesting failures live at that boundary: a sync conflict when two people edited the same record offline, a push token that goes stale and nobody notices until support tickets start. If the backend does not exist yet, we build it as part of the same engagement, which is why this page sits next to SaaS product development and API integration rather than standing alone.
What you get
Native or cross-platform build, decided and written down
Swift and Kotlin, or React Native and Flutter, chosen against what the app actually needs from the OS, not a default stack.
The API contract the app is built against
Defined early because both platforms build against it, and a late change to it costs two codebases instead of one.
Offline handling and sync for the screens that need it
Local writes, a queue for what could not send, and a conflict resolution rule that does not silently drop a change.
Push notifications that survive a stale token
APNs and FCM wired in, with the re-registration path that runs when a token expires instead of a notification going nowhere.
App Store and Play Store submission
Metadata, screenshots and review notes prepared to clear review the first time, not written after the first rejection.
Crash reporting and a release pipeline
Crashes visible from day one in production, and a build and release process that does not depend on one person's laptop.
Secure on-device storage for tokens and credentials
Keychain on iOS, Keystore on Android, so an auth token is not sitting in plain preferences.
Source and CI configuration, handed over
You can produce a signed release build without us in the loop.
When this fits, and when it does not
A good fit
- The app has to work with a bad or no connection: field service, warehouse floors, site visits, and offline is a real requirement, not a nice-to-have.
- The app needs a capability a wrapped webpage cannot reach reliably: camera, Bluetooth, NFC, background location.
- The app is the field half of a system, and the office side, a dashboard or an admin view, has to exist too.
- You need both iOS and Android and want the native-versus-cross-platform call made once, with reasons, rather than re-argued every sprint.
- The app has to clear an App Store or Play Store review, and you would rather that risk sat with people who have done it before.
Not a good fit
- What you actually need is a mobile-friendly website. A responsive site ships in days, goes through no app store review, and updates the moment you deploy. A native app is the wrong tool for content that is mostly text and forms.
- The app is a shell around a backend that does not exist yet and has not been scoped. Scope the backend first, whether that is SaaS product development or an integration, and the app follows it.
- You need one quick tool for a handful of employees to use on their own phones. That is usually a lighter build, closer to internal tools, than a public store release.
- You want a game or something graphically heavy. We build line-of-business apps. A studio that builds games every day will do a better job of that than we will.
How it runs
- 01
Scope the platform decision
Native or cross-platform, argued against what the app has to do, written down before anything is built.
- 02
Define the API contract
Set early, because both platforms build against it and a late change costs two codebases instead of one.
- 03
Build against real devices
A spread of OS versions and screen sizes, not just the simulator, because that is where Android fragmentation actually bites.
- 04
Closed beta
TestFlight or the Play internal track, with crash reporting live before the store submission goes in.
- 05
Submit and hand over
Store listing, source and the release pipeline, so the next update does not depend on us.
Questions we get
Native or cross-platform, how do you decide?
By what the app touches. Camera, background audio, a custom Bluetooth device or anything else that leans on the OS pushes toward native. Forms, lists, content and standard navigation are built once in React Native or Flutter without giving anything up. We say which case yours is before quoting.
Do you build the backend the app talks to?
Often, yes, in the same engagement. If it already exists we build against it. If it does not, that is SaaS product development or an internal tool depending on who uses it, and we scope both together so the API contract only gets written once.
What happens if the App Store rejects the build?
It gets fixed and resubmitted. We write the review notes and metadata to clear the common rejection reasons the first time, and if a specific reviewer flags something unusual we have a process for responding within the review window rather than starting the queue over.
Who owns the App Store and Play Console listing?
You do. We publish under your developer accounts by default. If you do not have one yet we help set it up, but the account and the listing are yours.
Have a mobile app to build?
Tell us what the app has to do on a phone that a website could not, and whether the backend it talks to already exists. An engineer reads it and tells you whether this wants to be an app at all.