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iOS and Android app development

I build iOS and Android web native apps for the app stores. Usually using Capacitor. For most businesses that’s the most economic choice and the easiest to maintain. I also take care of the App Store and Play Store presence.

Most apps I’m asked for are a web app that also has to be in the stores. So I maintain 1 codebase which is both the browser site and also wrapped as a native app. The builds run in Codemagic, which signs them and pushes them to TestFlight and the Play Console.

Why web to native

It’s the most economic choice for most businesses. One codebase instead of three, and the web version is there for free, which is where most people meet a product first anyway. Apps get expensive because of maintenance, and a web app wrapped in a native shell is the easiest kind to keep alive for years.

I’ve built with other Native app wrappers too. Handlefy’s iOS and Android app was React Native with Expo, and Naampie, the baby-name app we built in 2016, was Cordova. React Native is fine, but it’s a separate codebase from your website with its own ways of breaking, and it needs a developer who knows it when you want something changed.

Submitting to app stores

I also help managing the App Store and Play Store presence: the developer accounts, certificates and signing, the listings and screenshots, the review process, and the rejections etc… Apple rejects apps for nitty gritty details that may be hard to understand. And there’s a bazillion of forms and bureaucratic processes for both Apple and Google. If you have traumas from filing tax forms, you haven’t experienced this yet! This is way worse. But since I’ve done it many times, I can go through it relatively ‘fast’.

When to go fully native

When the app is mostly camera, sensors, offline maps or heavy animation, or when it has no web version and never will; then the web shell gets in the way and a native build is the right choice. That’s rare in the work I get asked for, and in this case, I would recommend a developer with a specific expertise on the matter.

Technologies

Selected work

  • ThuiszorgInHolland: care-worker app connected to AFAS

    For a home care organization, I connected AFAS to the recruitment website and care app: employee and client records coming in, vacancies and applications going out.

  • Guidesty: group travel planner

    Guidesty is a cooperative travel planner where a group of travellers can build an itinerary, vote on ideas and split the bill. I founded it with my longtime friend Mohamed and it's under active development.

  • Handlefy: real life 'Dropbox'

    Handlefy was a platform for decentralized storage space where you could administer and store your items, which would be picked up and returned where and whenever you wanted. Basically real life Dropbox/Cloud buckets. I worked on the iOS/Android app, website and cms.

  • Taxi Haarlem Service: taxi booking app and dispatch system

    I built the website, customer app and dispatch tools for a cooperative of thirteen taxi drivers, a service its customers prefer over Uber. It keeps their shared Google Calendar at the centre and connects bookings, driver assignments and flight updates through airport APIs.

  • Naampie: using Tinder UX to find the best baby name

    Us and two friends built a baby-name app while we were expecting children. Each partner swiped through a huge collection of names; names they both liked appeared on a shared match list. It reached about 500 downloads before we retired it.

Working together

I work from Zaandam, next to Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. Tell me what you want to build, what already exists and where you are getting stuck. How I work.

Email me at m [at] hacktis.ch.