Just found out that I forgot to upvote Bubble on Product Hunt … sorry … fixed!
Thank you Product Hunt for introducing me to Bubble and thank you Bubble for existence!
Short intro… We are small team of activists based in Berkeley, CA. Two month ago we decided to finally start implementing the idea that was in our minds for awhile (social non-profit service related to gift economy / exchange etc). Since I have connections with good developers and designers from Ukraine the plan was to hire them.
Important to note - we had and still have a possibility to get funded, say $10K is totally possible.
So we started to create wireframes and technical requirements for devs. And we’ve got a quote of $6K for initial development…
But then, I found Bubble!
One more important note. I’m a developer and work for Google full time. But I know that development is always pain in the ass and requires lots of time and energy. Before I found Bubble I knew that I’ll not have enough motivation to combine the work on our app with my regular 9 to 5.
So I started to discover Bubble and immediately fell in love with it. So intuitive! With Bubble I can achieve in couple hours the same result that normally takes days and even weeks, considering how fast you can loose motivation fighting with some JS, CSS etc issue.
In the same time the support - this forum - is amazing!
For now the development of our MVP goes pretty well, I’m having LOTS of fun. Everything that I wanted my app to do - is feasible and almost always easy to implement. I no more need Stack Overflow lol.
I wanted to reveal my big appreciation to Bubble creators and ask about future. Do you guys have a public product roadmap? It would be really interesting to know what you are working on and plan accordingly.
Actually based on that we plan to decide if we’ll need to still hire devs/designers to create a real version of the app - after MVP. My biggest question is - would it be possible to create native experience on mobile, like with React Native? (Since our app is mobile first this is our biggest concern).
That’s great to hear! Thanks for the kind note and congrats on your progress!
To your questions, that’s something we get often… We share on the forum longer terms projects and orientations, but we actually don’t have a public roadmap for minor features. A few users have asked for it, but so far we haven’t been able to do so, as we react a lot to demand and make product decisions almost on a weekly basis, after hearing what is needed. We also enable users to sponsor features when something is urgently needed, which makes a public roadmap a little bit difficult.
The current, longer term product push is around 2 things:
opening up the plugin system, letting users adding plugins and then sharing them through a marketplace.
pushing on performance, reliability and dedicated hosting.
Once we’re done with this (and especially 1), we’ll move to native apps, but that’s a few months away.
Regarding the native question, the best way right now is probably to code the app yourself, and use the Bubble API for the backed. Or you can work with what we currently have for native, but as you probably already read here, it’s in beta and not everything works well. But some users definitely succeeded at building good apps.
Hi @emmanuel, thank you so much for the great tool that Bubble.is is.
I was curious as to where things stood with native app building in Bubble. I’ve been searching through the threads and last I heard things were in beta, but that was several months back. Has there been any updates since regarding capabilities to build native apps via Bubble? And because it’s in beta do you recommend to not utilize it until it is out of beta?
I’ve noticed other routes mentioned like DropSource where Bubble is leveraged as a backend, or other web wrapping programs, but those seem somewhat dicey considering Apples app store regulations.
I’m trying to determine the best way to achieve a native experience that will pass muster, and if Bubble has a solution for this I’d prefer to vertically integrate through Bubble rather than piecing together other platforms, if that’s not necessary. Also, if this is possible via Bubble are there any resources that you can point to that can help us achieve this?
Thank you for your great product and any update / direction you can provide!
This is not currently possible. The only way to build a truly native app is to leverage Bubble for the backend, then use a tool like Dropsource to build the native app itself.
GoNative, Phonegap, solutions like this are building a hybrid application, leveraging webviews. Those are the instances where you need to be wary of Apple’s rules.
I’ve been immersing myself into the rabbit hole of how to launch an app and have read about theses piecing solutions, webviews, etc, but wasn’t sure if Bubble had gotten all the way to a solution themselves. Am I correct to assume that’s a path they are currently traveling?
It appears as though Dropsource and Bubble integration gives the best shot of success. Do you have a personal preference as to the best route to travel, or have direct experience with Bubble-Dropsource app launching versus webview, especially post Apple crackdown?
I, in general, don’t recommend doing webview period. The performance is generally bad, the user experience tends to be worse, and the lack of online support (in most cases) is not what I want out of a mobile app.
Dropsource is a good solution, and they’re helpful over at the forums. I’d check out forum.dropsource.com and see what their folks are doing with Bubble. It’s a good thing to hunt.
As far as where Bubble is heading, I really don’t know. That’s a question for someone on the team!
The official roadmap is here: https://bubble.io/roadmap but its not one you can pin down with a timeline or priority list, but a solution is on the cards it seems.
I appreciate that @andrewgassen. I will have to get into beast mode learning all I can about Dropsource now. I’m a little sad as I still thought I could get everything vertically integrated in Bubble but it’s seeming less like that is the optimal solution due to quality, performance issues, and chance of rejection via app store. I do hope Bubble gets to the point of being able to launch native style apps, though.
@andrewgassen, do you know of others who have successful launched Bubble apps to the app store just by utilizing Bubble native via one page and groups? Or is that a solution that still requires a webview? I’m a little hazy there.
The integration between Dropsource and Bubble seems a little daunting at first, but I’ll take it one step at a time and keep reading through the forums. Thank you guys for the feedback.
The bubble “native” is what I was referring to as using a webview. You’ll still need to wrap it, and native isn’t an accurate term to describe it, it’s still a hybrid app.
Also, keep in mind that I’m only one opinion. Others may have other thoughts, and you should explore them, too! I’m usually a big fan of doing whatever gets a product out fastest, but the hybrid vs native performance issues can be big enough to create a big usability problem if you’re not careful.
I agree if your product relies on it being a native app. But if that is the case, you should definitely consider even building it in the first place on Bubble.
I created a web app and made it mobile friendly. Having a hybrid app is an easy way to at least provide the feature of having an app. And in my case it does have some advantages to use the web app as a ‘native’ app.
I say easy, but it hasn’t been that easy so far though
@emmanuel I would love to echo @StevenM and find out if a timeline has been pinned down on any of the “Later” road map milestones. Specifically “Mobile” I would much rather stay in the Bubble ecosystem than bridge with Dropsource.
I would much rather stay in the Bubble ecosystem than bridge with Dropsource.