A few initial questions on native mobile app building:
How many apps can one build in a project? In my case I need at least two apps in my project. One for customers and one for the service providers. Can I create these two in same project or I need to have multiple projects?
If we discontinue bubble project or stop payment, then can we still use the same app id etc to launch our own app? Or will that app ID will totally be gone and we will have to build a fresh app? It is something like if I discontinue Bubble, I can still use the domain name that was pointing to my Bubble app to some other hosting. Can same be done with mobile apps?
How to get the location shared by users? How to get it continuously? Are they stored somewhere?
How to utilise local storage of the apps?
PS: I couldn’t locate the Mobile or Mobile Beta category
How many apps can one build in a project? In my case I need at least two apps in my project. One for customers and one for the service providers. Can I create these two in same project or I need to have multiple projects?
Just one “build” per project. Would be simpler if you could just adjust the app experience according to the user type instead of having 2 apps.
Every project has 1 webapp and 1 mobile app. Like Luisacosta said above, you might want to simplify the flow by having one app that deals with user types instead.
Based on appstore docs: removing an app means you lose ownership on that app’s name. And that SKU can’t be reused in the same organization
That’s odd. Can you imagine Uber having one common app for customer as well as driver and saying that they customise experience on the basis of user type? This is so non-optimal. Users’ experience for different personas is totally different most of the times, including their onboarding experience. For some type of user you may not even want to ask them to login or to choose user persona.
This is odd too. Shouldn’t we be the owner of the app?
Thanks. This helps.
I didn’t understand. Can you point to the documentation? How to read? If we can’t write, then what do we read? Is it for existing files?
Really depends on your use case. To be fair not a lot of businesses will require 2 mobile apps depending on 1 database. You could alternatively use the app connector to connect 2 Bubble mobile apps.
I really doubt this. These days in most of the consumer apps, there is a consumer and there is another vendor, service provider or some such entity for which experience has to be built. In fact there is a big concept of unbundling now where companies make many different apps even for same persona but different use-cases.
In current web scenario I actually have three apps in my project. I have built them separately and show webview inside them with different URLs, and that way I am able to have multiple apps in one project itself. I was hoping when Bubble brings native app solution these things will become easier and better.
I can understand where you are coming from. The question again goes back to “does it need a mobile app?”. I have a use case where a member will have a mobile app, partner vendors will be able to scan QR codes from a member’s webapp to verify their membership and issue/deduct points. It’s a mobile app because the client requires notifications and biometric logins. The client and partnering vendors’ dashboards are web apps.
Requiring partnering vendors to download a web app to verify URLs can bog down their operations. What happens when the device with the mobile app is down? In this case the vendor can scan the QR code with any internet enabled mobile device, gets sent to a URL with parameters, login with their vendor credentials (if needed, there are scenarios where the vendor just needs to verify the validity of the membership) and their operations are hardly affected.
Well this is a business decision and is dependent on use-case, context, user personas and various such factors. There is no point debating on this point as it would be different for everyone and there will be lot of such cases where there is genuine need of mobile app. I will not go in detail of those.
My point is that needing multiple mobile apps in a project is very basic need these days and it is very restrictive if that is not supported here.
This along with other issue that a mobile app is not owned by customer, but Bubble are very serious issues. In a typical website, if I am done with Bubble, I can simply move my frontend/backend to another platform and it doesn’t affect anything for end customer. But in this solution, I need to tell my end customer that they need to uninstall previous app and install a new one! That should be totally unacceptable.
Bubble should be highlighting this point up there that this is a restriction otherwise many people building their apps innocently via Bubble will have a shock later on when they decide to move to another platform.
That’s my point, you argue that it’s a basic need but there are no stats to back that up (i did a quick search but you can still prove me wrong).
It seems to me that you had expectations and are upset that they weren’t met. Which is alright but just be honest.
Why were you expecting any different from the current inability to export web apps? Bubble invested a lot to create a translation engine from Bubble to Native React. I too will want to lock in my users at least until I recoup the costs.
Not sure if I am able to explain my point. Bubble owns the code within the app is fine. That’s how it is in web app and if that continued here I won’t be surprised. What I am saying is we need to own the “ID” so that I can put my code behind that id tomorrow and not have my users download a different app. They should just need to update the app and should have my new code.
That’s what happens in web. We can change the code behind the domain by pointing it somewhere else while keeping the ownership of the domain. Customers do not need to go to new URL to access same webapp.
Almost all of the apps which are of a marketplace kind (Food delivery, Ride hailing, Services, Shopping, Gatekeeper apps, Travel booking, Hotel booking, Show booking, Content creation/consumption) have more than one persona involved in completing the transaction and would need multiple apps in one project.
I don’t think data/stats needed to be dug here to prove point when one sees so many verticals needing multiple apps in a business. If Bubble thinks otherwise and insists on thinking so, I can only wish well to them and everyone who thinks like that.
Just hopping in to clarify something - Bubble does not “own” the Bundle ID or Package Name used to identify your app. This is something that is created and managed by the user in their respective developer consoles. We only ask for this ID in the editor so that it can be included in the build file we generate for you, as it is used by the app stores to identify a build.
A bundle ID / package name is a unique identifier for each app store. It can also not be changed for an existing app store listing. For example, I have MyApp in the appstore under the bundle ID com.myapp. I can’t updated the bundle id to something else, nor can I create a totally new app and re-use that bundle ID.
However - I can send new build files that use the same bundle id, so long as the app I am submitting is the same type of app and everything ie I’m not going from a game to a fintech app for example. So if one day, I wanted to replace an existing mobile app I have that I built with code with a Bubble app (or vice versa), I would still use the same bundle id for the new build, the build file would just be generated elsewhere.
If having two apps is important to you, just create a new project and use the app connector to connect them both. You will have to pay for another subscription though.
Bubble invested a lot to create a translation engine from Bubble to Native React. I too will want to lock in my users at least until I recoup the costs.