What This Is
Mobile app development is building native-quality applications for iOS and Android from a single codebase using React Native. The result is an app your users install from the App Store or Google Play that looks and feels like a platform-native application, sharing its logic, data layer, and backend with your web systems.
This is not a wrapped website or a progressive web app. It is a compiled application with access to device hardware (push notifications, camera, biometrics, offline storage) running natively on the device. We build it once rather than maintaining separate Swift and Kotlin codebases, which means faster delivery and lower ongoing maintenance costs.
We build our own Beacon Pulse mobile app this way: a cross-platform application for iOS and Android that shares authentication, entitlements, and real-time data with the same Laravel backend that powers our web dashboard. That is the architecture we bring to client projects: one backend, multiple frontends, consistent data everywhere.
When You Need This
Mobile apps make sense when your users need to interact with your system away from a desk, in the field, on the move, or in situations where opening a browser is impractical. Common scenarios:
- Your team needs access to critical data on site (inspections, deliveries, job management) where a laptop is not practical
- Your clients expect a branded, installable experience rather than bookmarking a mobile website
- You need push notifications to alert users in real time rather than via email or SMS
- Your application requires device hardware: camera for document scanning, GPS for location tracking, biometrics for secure login
- You already have a web application and need a mobile companion that connects to the same data
This is not the right service if a responsive web application would meet the need. Mobile apps have higher upfront cost and require app store submissions. If your users would be equally served by a well-built mobile web experience, we will tell you during discovery.
How We Work
Mobile projects follow the same iterative approach as our web work, with a few specifics that matter for native delivery.
Shared backend, dedicated frontend. The mobile app connects to the same Laravel API as your web application. We extend the existing backend rather than building a separate one for mobile, adding endpoints optimised for mobile use cases: smaller payloads, efficient polling, and token-based authentication via Sanctum.
Platform conventions are respected. React Native gives us a shared codebase, but iOS and Android have different interaction patterns. Navigation, gesture handling, and visual density are tuned per platform. We use NativeWind for styling consistency and platform-specific components where the experience demands it.
Testing happens on real devices throughout development, not just in simulators. We test across a range of screen sizes, OS versions, and network conditions (including offline and low-bandwidth scenarios) because that is where mobile apps actually live.
What You Get
- A cross-platform mobile app for iOS and Android from a single React Native codebase
- Push notifications via Firebase Cloud Messaging or APNs for real-time user alerts
- Offline capability where appropriate: cached data, queued actions, sync on reconnect
- Biometric authentication: Face ID, Touch ID, and fingerprint login
- Backend integration with your existing Laravel API or a new one built as part of the project
- App store submissions: we handle the build, signing, and submission process for both stores
- Over-the-air updates for JavaScript-layer changes that do not require a full app store review cycle
Technologies We Use
- React Native for the cross-platform application layer, with native performance without maintaining two codebases
- NativeWind (Tailwind for React Native) for consistent styling across platforms
- Laravel + Sanctum for backend API and token-based mobile authentication
- PostgreSQL for data persistence
- Pusher or WebSocket connections for real-time features
Our frontend team works in React daily across web application development, our own products, and client work. React development and React Native share the same mental model and component architecture, which means faster delivery and a team that can maintain both your web and mobile frontends without context-switching between entirely different codebases.
Related Systems
Mobile apps are often the companion interface for systems we build as web applications: client portals where clients check status on the go, reporting dashboards for quick data checks, or notification systems where push alerts are the primary delivery channel. The mobile app extends the system to where a browser cannot reach.
Talk to Us About Your Mobile App
If your users need your system in their pocket as a real application, not a website, get in touch and we will scope what the mobile experience should look like. You can also browse our services to see what we build.
The Question To Settle Before Spending Anything
What do you need that a website cannot do?
Answer this honestly and a good proportion of app projects stop here, having saved a great deal of money.
Native apps mean two codebases, iOS and Android, alongside whatever you already have on the web. Three sets of changes for every feature, two app store review processes, two sets of maintenance, permanently. That is not a reason to avoid them. It is a reason to be certain.
For most business software, a web application that works properly on a phone delivers the same outcome at a fraction of the cost.
When Native Is Genuinely The Answer
Hardware you cannot reach from a browser. Sustained background location, Bluetooth devices, advanced camera control.
Working offline for real. Not a cached page: hours of use with no signal and reliable sync afterwards. Genuinely hard, and genuinely a native strength.
Notifications you depend on, particularly on iOS where web notification support arrived late and remains weaker.
Store discovery matters commercially. If people find products by browsing the store, absence is a real cost. For business software, where users are directed to it, it usually is not.
Performance beyond what a browser gives you. Graphics, heavy processing, sustained real-time work.
The Middle Option Most People Miss
A progressive web app: your web application, installable to the home screen, running without a browser bar, working offline, receiving notifications.
One codebase. No store review, no revenue share, updates live immediately rather than waiting for approval and adoption.
The honest limitations: installation on iOS is obscure, there is no prompt and users have to be told; some capabilities remain restricted; and there is no store presence.
For a lot of business software that trade is clearly worth making, and it is worth evaluating before committing to two native builds.
What Moves The Price
One platform or two. React Native shares most of the code and does not make it free; platform differences remain.
Offline requirements. The single biggest multiplier. Sync with conflict resolution is a substantial piece of engineering.
Hardware integration. Each device or sensor is its own body of work.
Store compliance. Review, privacy declarations, age ratings and the rejection cycles they produce.
Backend. An app is a front end. If it needs an API that does not exist yet, that is a separate build.
Where App Projects Go Wrong
Building an app because competitors have one. With no answer to what it does that the site does not.
Underestimating maintenance. Both platforms release annually and break things. An unmaintained app stops working, visibly, in public.
Ignoring the store timeline. Review can take days and rejections happen. An urgent fix is not immediate.
Forgetting installation is a barrier. Getting somebody to install and keep an app is a much larger ask than getting them to open a link.
Questions To Ask Whoever Quotes For This
- What does this do that a web app could not? Then check the answer against the PWA capabilities.
- What is the annual maintenance cost? Both platforms, indefinitely.
- Who owns the developer accounts? Should be your business, not the agency.
- How does offline work, precisely? Vague answers here become expensive later.
- What happens when Apple or Google changes something?
A Brief You Can Send Anyone
Who uses it: [staff, customers, or both]
Where they are when they use it: [office, on site, in a vehicle, no signal]
What they do in it: [the two or three core tasks]
Whether it needs hardware: [camera, GPS, Bluetooth, scanner]
Offline requirement: [none, brief, or hours]
Do they need to find us in the store: [yes / no]
What exists already: [website, web app, API]
How many users: [realistically, in year one]
How We Advise On This
We will tell you if you do not need an app, because the alternative is you paying for two codebases to deliver what one would have.
Where a web application will do, web application development plus proper mobile support is the cheaper and more maintainable route. Where native is genuinely required, React Native shares most of the work across both platforms.
Get in touch with what your users are doing when they reach for their phone.
