I’m not usually a naysayer, but I don’t feel like it’s ready to go public.
I can’t tell if I’m in the minority here. I get the sense that within Bubble there is a lot of confidence about the mobile editor and they’re seeing a ton of feedback from people that it’s ready to go–and I’m just an outlier.
Have I just had a particularly bad time with the mobile editor? Or is it universal?
You only get to make a first impression once, and I can’t help but to feel that the first impression for most people will be a total disappointment. Also, a lot of people are going to think “public beta” means they can start building for production.
Obviously I love Bubble, and I think the mobile editor is an incredible feat. The team has done a fantastic job and what they’ve built is a game changer. All that should be celebrated. But I can’t help but feel like this release is going to be a huge fiasco, cause an uproar of angry reactions.
Before the space shuttle Challenger disaster happened, there were engineers who knew that there was a problem. But they were ignored because it seemed crazy to delay this big important launch with something so small as a concern about O-ring gaskets. When NASA did the review of what caused the disaster, they blamed it on “go fever.” Even though it was technically the O-rings that failed, NASA identified the real problem as a culture of making sure the launch happens at all costs.
I kinda feel like I’m that engineer who knows everything is about to go horribly wrong, and I feel a responsibility to speak up. What would make me feel much better is if a whole bunch of other engineers chimed in and said “hey, we don’t actually think the O-rings are a problem.”
Or maybe everyone agrees that it’s not ready, and there’s still time for Bubble to hear us and adjust the messaging so that people don’t come into it with high expectations.
lol. I hope it’s less risky using the mobile editor.
I just got access, I used the editor, and I shipped a live app to the app store. I’m excited and I think most users will have the same experience as me.
Are there issues? Yep.
Are core things missing? Yep.
I think launching forces bubble to work fast and that’s exactly what I’m hoping for.
I appreciate the feedback @brenton.strine, as always, but I’m not sure I view it the same way. In my mind, the removal of the waitlist for mobile is very similar to the roll out of new responsive. New responsive was pretty buggy and there were a lotttt of missing features (like padding!) when it was first opened up, but it was a completely optional experience. Over the course of 6 months, the team listened to feedback and rapidly iterated, adding new features and squashing bugs, until we got to the point where people were kinda begging for it to be the default experience.
Yes mobile is a big launch, but its also a completely optional experience. We have enough proof that it is feature complete and stable enough to build real apps that get approved for the app stores, but, we also know that there is still plenty of work to be done. We could wait another 6 months for it to be more feature complete, and more stable, but I guarantee you that people will still be complaining about missing features in 6 months as well. By removing the waitlist now, we give more people the opportunity to try it out and collect richer feedback. If its not ready for them, no harm no foul. However, if it is, they now have access to a game changing technology for their business etc.
From a messaging perspective, this is still going out as a Public Beta, not a full GA or anything, and we are going to be level setting expectations in our comms. Would love to hear what I am missing, but since this is a completely new product offering that is also an optional experience, I’m not sure I agree about the potential for a "disaster’
@nick.carroll I guess I actually do agree with that. But maybe I’m more concerned about the messaging than whether or not it actually is opened up. There needs to be intense communication about this being a beta. People’s expectations for this are unreasonably high, and some of the messaging I’m seeing from Bubble is not helping on that front.
I was watching some angry videos about some stuff which Figma released–stuff that was incredibly polished and refined–and they were saying it should have been branded as an “early alpha” rather than a beta.
I get that this is a huge deal for Bubble and they want to promote it, but the messaging that’s getting out is “we’re going live!” or “Bubble is finally launching mobile” not “access to the beta has opened!”
To me it’s all about setting expectations. Maybe Bubble is a bit embarrassed that it’s taken this long to get to this point and it’s still “only a beta” so they want to downplay the beta-ness of this and make it feel like a full launch. But that means people come in expecting to be able to build production apps in a mostly bug-free editor, which is not realistic yet.
very fair perspective - I appreciate you looking out. Internally, I believe we are all aligned that we are launching early in the interest of giving more people access. You’ll get a sneak peek as a BAM next week, but we will be messaging that its still in beta / you may run into bugs and feature limitations in our launch event & materials. That being said, we will also be launching with a fairly specific roadmap of future improvements that will also level set expectations.
If I can hijack your point to make a different point. Your phrasing on this exactly the problem, not with you specifically @jacob2, but how humans think. Its too easy to simply what’s happening down to “launch” rather than “open the beta.”
opening / public beta / feedback / polish / refine / preparation / work still to do / feedback still to receive / proud to be able open this up to a Public Beta
Avoid words like;
GA / Launch / ready / game changer / transform / next level / version 1 / tireless effort
A few stray messages that land as “Bubble launches Native Mobile” could be a PR train wreck where as “Bubble finally opens Native Mobile up to public Beta” sets the scene.
I’m not telling Bubble marketing how to do their jobs - yikes that would be a mistake.
The thing I am the most concerned about is how bug tickets are going to be handled.
Currently, I have like 10 tickets opened, some that were created many weeks ago.
Since the platform still has tons of bugs, what is going to happen when tens of thousands of users join and submit thousands of bug reports ?
On a side note, being a private beta tester, I started being happy to help the team and do my best to submit detailed bug reports. But seeing no answer from bubble for weeks is a bit discouraging, so as of now, if I encounter bugs that are not too bad, I just wait and hope it’s going to get fixed.
I’m wishing bubble team all the best for this public beta launch
Agreed on the bug tickets and the general levels of support.
I’ve been waiting on a response for a week for an ‘unexpected error’ on my build and there is no way to resolve this other than to contact support.
I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like on June 10 when this is let loose to thousands of users.
I would highly recommend adding a ‘build troubleshooting’ section with common errors and how to fix them. More specific error reporting in the build email would also be super helpful and save a bunch of support tickets.
@nick.carroll I’d love you to speak directly to this. Is there a resourcing plan for launch so we can expect better support ? I thought my ticket experience was a one-off but it seems like the status quo.
I’ve got little interest in investing in Bubble Native if there is no reliable support going forward. It is impossible to built a reliable app if ticket replies are pot luck. It’s a core part of the Bubble promise - having a helpful team on hand to support the infrastructure we outsource to you.
Hi everyone - I hear you on the bug report / support ticket response times. The private beta was not just about testing and validating the product, but also our processes and how we can scale them. We’ve been paying attention to the feedback so I want to share what we’re doing to improve the experience as we move into the public beta.
Firstly, please know that every single bug report is read and reviewed by our team – even when you don’t get a resolution immediately, your reports are being evaluated, prioritized, and added to our queue. While we can’t fix every bug immediately, here are some of the changes we’re making to expand our capacity.
Growing Our Team: We’ve significantly expanded our support team with several new specialists who will be ramped up by the public beta launch.
Increased Engineering Support: Soon, there will be an engineer specifically focused on mobile bug reports rather than mixing them with mobile development work.
Improved Self-Service: We’re enhancing our build error emails to include direct links to troubleshooting resources, helping you resolve common issues faster.
Enhanced Tooling: Our team (and you!) will have access to debugging tools soon that’ll make investigating and resolving mobile issues more efficient.
We hope this update helps you get a peek behind the curtain and see what improvements we’re making.
Thank you again for taking the time to share the bug reports – They are absolutely essential and will help us with refining the platform for everyone during the beta.
To be fair, we complain if Bubble doesn’t ship fast enough, then complain if they release it.
I think what makes mobile different is that they’re actually gonna keep developing it rather than settle for it being 80% done like some of the previous poorly received feature launches
not crucified.