Question: What does Bubble Native mean for my Responsive App?

thethinklab.au · 2024-10-05T23:24:50.974Z

Hey,

I’m confused about how the Bubble Native works? My app is accessible on the web, and I currently use a wrapper to get it on the app store meaning I only have to maintain one front-end/back-end.

Does the new Bubble Native mean I would have to maintain two app front-ends?

georgecollier · 2024-10-05T23:26:24.044Z

thethinklab.au:

Does the new Bubble Native mean I would have to maintain two app front-ends?

Yes, that’s probably a good thing as mobile native allows a lot more mobile-first UI features than web and if you want a serious mobile app, you need native mobile rather than a PWA.

thethinklab.au · 2024-10-05T23:32:10.374Z

Well, I agree that leveraging the Native features is good (actually great), but surely there was a way that this could have been done without requiring us to essentially rebuild another app.

I can’t see how this release is good for anyone unless your App is only for mobile… It introduces a lot more overhead for minimal value to users?

georgecollier · 2024-10-05T23:54:17.404Z

thethinklab.au:

I can’t see how this release is good for anyone unless your App is only for mobile… It introduces a lot more overhead for minimal value to users?

Native mobile is the default on app stores for a reason. You don’t really see any successful apps choosing to use a PWA.

I’ve always said this and always will do. Like 95% of Bubble apps that use a PWA might as well just be using the website in the native browser. Virtually no difference except for a small set of features and downloading on an app store. My agency refuses to do PWAs entirely because pre-mobile native, Bubble just isn’t a good platform for
mobile. If there was any remote possibility they were widely a good idea, we’d of course be taking the money and doing them.

If your users say ‘I want to download the app!’, what they mean is I want an app that feels like it was made for mobile and has basic offline functionality. That’s what mobile native is for, and PWAs don’t solve those two things the user wants.

thethinklab.au · 2024-10-06T00:13:06.826Z

I think you’re quite wrong here. My app, and lots of others using PWA, do feel native (I agree there are a lot of crap ones where it’s not really clear why you would download the app instead of just going in a browser, but I would put this as design/product issues as opposed to an inherint issue with Wrappers). Sure there are some things missing, like haptics, gestures (which plugins can resolve), and offline mode, however, these are not essential to all apps.

Given that with Bubble and a wrapper you can produce a very close native experience, including notifications, there is a decision to make on whether or not maintaining two apps is worth the effort (vs User Value).

I definitely want Offline mode for my app, however, if the cost is several weeks of re-development and testing I’m happy to keep telling users they need a stable internet connection, and I’ll offer Offline once I scale to a size where I will jump off Bubble and onto my own code base.

I’m not arguing the benefit of a native app. I’m arguing that the way Bubble has gone about this seems like it could have been done better, if in fact you have to maintain two seperate ‘apps’ (which you have confirmed). There is a decision point for people to make, and if things like Offline mode and some other minor things are not essential to your app then I can’t really see the benefit in moving from a wrapper. It seems like Bubble is focussing on features to attract new users, rather than implementing features to help their existing users. The AI page builders are an example of this.

Maybe it will be clearer once we get access and can make an assessment. I have a lot of complex features and repeating groups, and I wince at having to recreate these, and maintain and update in two places (unless I’m misunderstanding how this works?). One of the huge selling points of Bubble was the responsive approach, and effectively single code base, now I’m wondering why I didn’t just go with FlutterFlow to begin with if this is where we are heading.

I signed up to Beta the day they started taking registrations (about a year ago) but still haven’t heard anything.

ihsanzainal84 · 2024-10-06T01:02:09.913Z

I build for desktop and responsive first so I don’t have any urgency for mobile. My apps are better suited as PWAs. That said, there’s always a use case for both mobile native and PWAs.

Apps like Notion and this forum are PWAs.

Anyway Bubble native apps run completely in React so there’s a good chance for performance improvements versus a wrapper.

msgiblin · 2024-10-06T01:04:41.661Z

thethinklab.au:

It seems like Bubble is focussing on features to attract new users, rather than implementing features to help their existing users.

To be fair to Bubble, Native Mobile is THE MOST upvoted/ requested feature on the Bubble ideaboard:

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Bubble

| Bubble

Do you have an idea about how we can make Bubble better? Submit a feature idea for the Bubble product team, or browse and upvote others' ideas.

thethinklab.au · 2024-10-06T01:19:21.609Z

That idea was added in 2020, so would be interested to know whether that predates wrappers. I don’t disagree that it’s highly sought after, but as I keep saying it’s the execution of it that is my issue (without having had the opportunity to test it).

The top comment on this Idea from @Pr.Bifidus is extremely relevant:

"We already HAVE several ways to make Bubble webapps published on native apps stores. In my opinion, there are many features much more important than this one to improve Bubble capabilities and value-for-money against competitors…

I’m afraid this feature takes up too much Bubble’s team brain to the detriment of performance and backend capabilities improvements."

Looking at some of the things this offers, it can basically ALL be done without their native tool except for Gestures and Offline Mode.

senecadatabase · 2024-10-06T10:41:17.436Z

georgecollier:

You don’t really see any successful apps choosing to use a PWA.

I think it’s all a personal choice.

However, having worked with Uber, I can tell you they have a PWA that does quite well.

WhatsApp, Spotify, Tinder, Starbucks, and the list goes on also have a PWA.

I have heard the argument that if you don’t have your app in the app store you aren’t really considered legit…

but out of the about 4 million apps in the app stores, only about 0.5% are even successful.

I obviously don’t have anything against apps, but I think having both can be important.

I definitely wouldn’t list PWAs as being subpar.

georgecollier · 2024-10-06T10:55:11.461Z

senecadatabase:

I definitely wouldn’t list PWAs as being subpar.

Yes, but there’s a clear distinction between PWAs built on Bubble, and PWAs built using traditional frameworks that feel a lot closer to mobile

senecadatabase · 2024-10-06T10:58:53.828Z

I’m using Progressier for the PWA part on Bubble.

Hopefully, when the new mobile builder is released we won’t be able to say the same thing about mobile apps built on Bubble compared to building on traditional platforms.

thethinklab.au · 2024-10-07T01:15:59.061Z

What specific limitations do you think there are with PWAs built on Bubble?

greg18 · 2024-10-09T15:42:46.827Z

My biggest problems with iOS PWAs are:

Screen wake lock has been broken for 18 months (screw monopolistic Apple!)
No background location
No sound effects unless triggered by user action (i.e. no sound effects upon page load / app opened)

There are many more problems, see this twitter post