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Native app vs responsive

#1

I created a native app with groups hiding and showing instead of navigating between pages. I am now looking into ways of publishing it and it seems that the best (only?) way is to use web wrappers of one flavor or another. I am now under the impression that I should have built responsive and then use a wrapper on the responsive page, would that not have been better?

There are some issues I have not yet fully solved like different page length leading to scroll in all pages, Landscape mode not working and static page size leaving white borders in the app which I think responsive multi page design would have avoided those issues?

I have tried Android Studio and Thunkable.com so far and I am kind of disappointed now as I expected a better experience.

What is your experience and is it recommended to redo the app as multi page responsive and then wrap that?

#2

A year later and I’m wondering the same thing. Anything change in the past year that’d make the “native app” single page with groups approach better than just a responsive multi-page web app?

Thanks

#3

I don’t know of any great hybrid mobile apps built on Bubble. Going the route of a single page with show-hide groups can be a massive pain to manage, but going the route of multiple pages makes it painfully obvious you’re interacting with a web app instead of a mobile app.

Regardless, you should design each page or group to be responsive so you can accommodate the different screen dimensions of the kajillion mobile devices floating around out there.

#4

Thanks Andrew,

If you (or others) could weigh in on this approach I’m considering.

I’m creating a mobile app experience with two different user types – let’s use Uber for example and their driver and rider as example user types. I’m thinking of splitting the app into two pages that are (in Bubble terms) treated as their own single page native app – a “driver” experience and a “rider” experience. The upside is I’m expecting is I can leverage the single page performance advantages, but separate app logic that doesn’t need to all be housed in a single page. At login I’d navigate users to the proper page and that should be the main load time.

Does this sound reasonable? Am I missing details on how Bubble’s single page “native app” should perform?

Thanks

#5

That sounds like a doable solution to me, and shouldn’t be too difficult to implement.

#6

My app is build on a single page with showing/hiding groups. (https://ycn.asia/, for the app click preview) This is definitely the way to go for mobile. There are however challenges. Slow loading times for large RG’s on mobile have been a problem. Pagination of the RG has been the answer to this. However, the pagination does not allow for multiple column’s which looks bad on desktops.

I am now thinking of splitting the app into two pages, one for desktop and one for mobile. This will increase development time as every feature needs to be duplicated but I think the resulting app will be more robust and better looking on both.

What are you thinking about the approach and do you see any pitfalls? detecting the right device might be a challenge?