Native mobile app within regular app?

Hello Bubblers,

I was wondering if I can design my native mobile app within my original web application? So the native app would just be a page within the regular application using the same database.

The idea is to have a comprehensive application with backend etc which is actually driving the mobile application.

If I go this route can I still submit the mobile application to the app stores?

Thank you for your help.

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Yes, is the short answer.

In fact, this is exactly how Bubble does it. You create a new page in your overall app and mark it as mobile native. This is the page you use with Bubble’s help for iOS or on your own with Phonegap (iOS, Android).

One note, these aren’t actually “Native Apps.” A native app for iOS would have to be written in Objective-C and Java for Android. The app will feel like a normal app in most ways, but is really a wrapper for the web page. You could recreate much of Instagram for example, but never all of it because you can’t tap into the native camera in the same way.

For most people this is fine, but worth knowing since some builder services do actually create Native apps.

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Thank you very much Jason, this clarifies it for me and thank you for explaining the native side of apps too. Wrapper is fine for me as long as it looks and feels professional and is speedy enough.

Hi All,

I started building my app for standard web but would like to have an app version as well, since I need to send push notifications to users.

I have been wondering -
If I want to have both a web version and a mobile version–is it best to build the entire thing in the mobile format (one page, with show/hide groups on top of each other), and then just change the way it looks in responsive settings? This was my plan until I saw a pop-up that said the entire size of the page needs to be much smaller to suit mobile. Now it seems it’s just not possible to use a page for both mobile and standard web.

What you seem to be saying above is that you can in fact have an entire web version, and then on a clean separate page, have the same content on a page you structure as the mobile version (with show/hide groups). Do I understand correctly?

I keep thinking that that might not work since the navigation would get messy, but I suppose if you are only posting a specific page to the app store, then everything would stay within that page. Conversely, your standard web version would just never take you to the mobile version page. Does that make sense?

I am going in a confusing circle…

Thanks in advance!

Yes @jamie, this is exactly what I have done. Build a web app on multiple pages and then have one page in mobile resolution with hiding/showing groups. Browser will check if on mobile or on computer. You can then “wrap” the mobile page for the app stores but this opens a totally new can of worms :slight_smile: