Inputs for Android/IOS/Web App development for community services

[catherineteosg]

For a startup company in community services, it has a requirement for App development. We consulted a consultant and they suggested Node.JS and Rails based development.

Consultant suggested a web app, when a user accesses a website, there will be an option for installing App icon link on mobile phone. There will not be any play store or app store involved . So user can click the link which will create a shortcut icon on the mobilephone.

We want to have scalability. Though this app is for community services, no revenue or payment or financial transaction involved for at least next two years. Basically the organiser will place events. so event notification will be shown. If the user is interested, he or she may register for the events .
Event organizers may upload agenda , schedule, meeting location, picture of location as a JPEG image while placing events.

One of my ex colleagues suggested firebase, flutter and Dart based applications.

What is the current trend?

We need scalability if the number of members increases. Focus on Singapore to begin and the rest of ASIA in the second phase.

So what is the best option?

1) Web application which creates icons on mobile phones when user accesses. Developed using Rail and NODE.JS?
2) Firebase, Flutter and Dart based applications installed through Play store or App Store.
3) Any other option for rapid development?

Any pros and cons?

May I request you to share your inputs? Appreciate.

 

[davidktw]

For a startup company in community services, it has a requirement for App development. We consulted a consultant and they suggested Node.JS and Rails based development.

Consultant suggested a web app, when a user accesses a website, there will be an option for installing App icon link on mobile phone. There will not be any play store or app store involved . So user can click the link which will create a shortcut icon on the mobilephone.

We want to have scalability. Though this app is for community services, no revenue or payment or financial transaction involved for at least next two years. Basically the organiser will place events. so event notification will be shown. If the user is interested, he or she may register for the events .
Event organizers may upload agenda , schedule, meeting location, picture of location as a JPEG image while placing events.

One of my ex colleagues suggested firebase, flutter and Dart based applications.

What is the current trend?

We need scalability if the number of members increases. Focus on Singapore to begin and the rest of ASIA in the second phase.

So what is the best option?

1) Web application which creates icons on mobile phones when user accesses. Developed using Rail and NODE.JS?
2) Firebase, Flutter and Dart based applications installed through Play store or App Store.
3) Any other option for rapid development?

Any pros and cons?

May I request you to share your inputs? Appreciate.

Node.js is Javascript.
Rails is using Ruby.
Is your consultant suggesting both, or one of them ?

Firebase works too. Firebase is Backend-As-A-Service platform, which the 2 technologies earlier are more to describe the underlying technologies and frameworks. As Firebase is just a backend, you will still need a frontend for your end-users to interact with. That is why Flutter and Dart are suggested as programming languages to support the frontend development which in this case will be mobile applications and also web application(optionally PWA)

Both parties are suggesting different paradigm of hosting your software. The former is using web application where it is solely hosted at the server side. It provides a web application (optionally can be a Progressive Web Apps (PWA)) where end-users just serve using the mobile web browser, or can potentially create an icon on the Home Screen(using PWA) where the web application frontend will looks like a dedicated mobile app on the smartphone. The latter is using a platform managed service, and it may cost more (depending on what you want).

When using Node.js or Ruby on Rails(RoR), one can also deploy onto platform services like AWS Lambda to provide a very scalable design.
Scalability has nothing to do with programming languages, it's a design concept.

While the consultant suggested something and your ex-colleague suggested another, the main question here is WHO is doing the work ? Whichever you choose, choose something whom knows what they are advocating and delivering. Between all these technologies, the differences may not be of most importance to you as a client because you are just paying for it, not maintaining it. While there are concerns, the concerns are not highest priority. Your priority should be assessing the competency/proficiency of the vendor, the support that the vendor will be providing, service level agreement, project and deliverables schedule and milestones, change management and exit plan.

With an incompetent vendor, even the best framework will turn out to be yet another bad project with bad deliverables.

These days, PWA are pretty good as long as your web application doesn't require tight integration with the hardware features of the smartphone. Basic things like sound, camera, display, file system, compass, gyroscope, microphone can be accessed from web interface easily. With a server-side deployment, it is alot easier to maintain and doesn't require deployment and approval process from the either Apple Appstore or Google Playstore before your end-user get to use them. Any changes done on the server-side can easily be disseminated to the end-users on the next visit.

I personally will recommend PWA unless you are ready for the hassle required to deploy mobile applications. No doubt deploying mobile apps is simple, but not simpler than a server-side web application where you get total control of the entire workflow.

 

[catherineteosg]

Node.js is Javascript.
Rails is using Ruby.
Is your consultant suggesting both, or one of them ?

Thank you @davidktw Appreciate being kind enough to analyze the proposal and providing your valuable inputs to take informed decision.

Yes the consultant suggested Node.js and Ruby on rails. If I recollect correctly Ruby on Rails used for database and Node.js for the front end.

Firebase works too. Firebase is Backend-As-A-Service platform, which the 2 technologies earlier are more to describe the underlying technologies and frameworks. As Firebase is just a backend, you will still need a frontend for your end-users to interact with. That is why Flutter and Dart are suggested as programming languages to support the frontend development which in this case will be mobile applications and also web application(optionally PWA)

Both parties are suggesting different paradigm of hosting your software. The former is using web application where it is solely hosted at the server side. It provides a web application (optionally can be a Progressive Web Apps (PWA)) where end-users just serve using the mobile web browser, or can potentially create an icon on the Home Screen(using PWA) where the web application frontend will looks like a dedicated mobile app on the smartphone. The latter is using a platform managed service, and it may cost more (depending on what you want).

My concern is, all the apps I have installed on my mobile are from App store or Play Store. I never installed any shortcut using PWA. The effort will go waste, if users reluctant to create shortcut using PWA.

a) Is this common practice to create shortcut icon using PWA? Are you aware of any popular apps or web apps creates shortcut using PWA ? Users should not feel insecure to create icon using PWA. This is one of the main concern.

While the consultant suggested something and your ex-colleague suggested another, the main question here is WHO is doing the work ? Whichever you choose, choose something whom knows what they are advocating and delivering. Between all these technologies, the differences may not be of most importance to you as a client because you are just paying for it, not maintaining it. While there are concerns, the concerns are not highest priority. Your priority should be assessing the competency/proficiency of the vendor, the support that the vendor will be providing, service level agreement, project and deliverables schedule and milestones, change management and exit plan.

With an incompetent vendor, even the best framework will turn out to be yet another bad project with bad deliverables.

We have a vendor with strong technical capability. So development and delivery is not main concern. Once the decision is made, budget is finalized they will deliver. They are local vendors, so I am relieved of delivery issues.

These days, PWA are pretty good as long as your web application doesn't require tight integration with the hardware features of the smartphone. Basic things like sound, camera, display, file system, compass, gyroscope, microphone can be accessed from web interface easily. With a server-side deployment, it is alot easier to maintain and doesn't require deployment and approval process from the either Apple Appstore or Google Playstore before your end-user get to use them. Any changes done on the server-side can easily be disseminated to the end-users on the next visit.

I personally will recommend PWA unless you are ready for the hassle required to deploy mobile applications. No doubt deploying mobile apps is simple, but not simpler than a server-side web application where you get total control of the entire workflow.

Our Management team also prefers PWA. The entire workflow is not complicated. What is critical is the app should send notification when there is an event planned. So basic information like accessing gyroscope(location access) , notification when it is pushed (if user enabled notification ) also periodically check the user location and notify user if user visit event spot with latest message/direction/event guidance etc.

In addition can we have an App in google play store or IOS App store an app which simply create a link or icon to PWA? Trying to make the install experience through play store or app store.

Thank you once again @davidktw

 

[davidktw]

Thank you @davidktw Appreciate being kind enough to analyze the proposal and providing your valuable inputs to take informed decision.

Yes the consultant suggested Node.js and Ruby on rails. If I recollect correctly Ruby on Rails used for database and Node.js for the front end.

Both Node.js and Ruby on Rails are backend technologies. Both technologies can access the database just fine. If your frontend app is a Single Page Application (SPA), regardless of PWA or not, it doesn't require Node.js to present those javascript/typescript source codes and libraries, stylesheets and html, etc. Just a simple web server like NginX, Apache HTTPd or even CDN/Object storage solutions like AWS S3, Cloudflare R2 can do the job fast and cheap.

My concern is, all the apps I have installed on my mobile are from App store or Play Store. I never installed any shortcut using PWA. The effort will go waste, if users reluctant to create shortcut using PWA.
a) Is this common practice to create shortcut icon using PWA? Are you aware of any popular apps or web apps creates shortcut using PWA ? Users should not feel insecure to create icon using PWA. This is one of the main concern.

https://www.simicart.com/blog/progressive-web-apps-examples/
Why your customer will choose to use mobile app or PWA is not because of your technologies, it's because of your business and your branding. No doubt mobile apps have its advantages, like supporting push notifications, in mobile payment like Google/Apple Pay natively, or some other obscure technologies native to the smartphones. If you are not using them, then a server-side mobile app will be easier to manage. Of course, there is no disadvantage going with native mobile apps too, it's just an involved workflow, like for eg: Any updates you want to make, doesn't get installed onto mobile phones immediately, you will need to cater across different OS versions, ESPECIALLY for Android devices. Some users make choose not to update, or cannot update to the latest version because of the smartphone OS version limitation. Updating app will need to conform to platform provider T&C and app guidelines. I'm sure you must have heard of the "epic"(pun intended) lawsuit between Apple and Epic Games, and now Google also join in the game.

We have a vendor with strong technical capability. So development and delivery is not main concern. Once the decision is made, budget is finalized they will deliver. They are local vendors, so I am relieved of delivery issues.

That's good to know.

Our Management team also prefers PWA. The entire workflow is not complicated. What is critical is the app should send notification when there is an event planned. So basic information like accessing gyroscope(location access) , notification when it is pushed (if user enabled notification ) also periodically check the user location and notify user if user visit event spot with latest message/direction/event guidance etc.

One glaring issue I know is Apple PWA doesn't support push notification. If you need that, then I will encourage you to choose hybrid app development, or just go full native. Full native is also more expensive because the need to support 2 main platforms namely iOS and Android. Android place is getting less fragmented, but still a lot less consistent compared to iOS. So the vendor might charge you more for compatibility.

Web application mostly wouldn't have this issue since the web technologies have greatly consolidated over the years, unless you are touching some bleeding edge technologies.

In addition can we have an App in google play store or IOS App store an app which simply create a link or icon to PWA? Trying to make the install experience through play store or app store.

Thank you once again @davidktw

Technically yes, but I think Apple Appstore will forbid you under their App Store guidelines. Check with your vendor, I'm not 100% sure but I know Apple Appstore is a lot more stringent.