Feature - Mobile client

[LukasAnda]

I think we should discuss whether to use full native solution (Kotlin/Swift) or try Flutter for making apps. Personally, I do not think Ionic or other platforms relying on C# or JS are good for this project.

[kaushalgautam]

Ionic works with react now. I don't know if it's ready for prod yet though. https://ionicframework.com/docs/react/overview
Ionic works pretty great with Angular. If it delivers the same with react, @LukasAnda, why do you think it's a bad idea?

[bernhard-hofmann]

I was hoping the site would be a mobile first PWA. This would mean there's no need for a dedicated mobile app. For example, I'm writing this on my phone without a GitHub app.

What features are you considering that would require a device specific app?

[kaushalgautam]

I completely agree with going for a PWA.
I mentioned Ionic because I figured @LukasAnda wanted to go with making native apps using Kotlin/Swift.

[LukasAnda]

Well first off maybe personal preference because I wanted to help with development and I am an Android developer. Then, I think the native approach is more stable.

[jatinhariani]

Strongly recommend going native, especially if we are serious about building a serious alternative to Meetup. - I have experience building Kotlin and Swift based apps and can offer help for both.

[vuksa]

I would also prefer going native. We can even go Kotlin multiplatform and share common code and business logic layer between the iOS and Android apps.

[kaushalgautam]

Developing native apps will increase the contribution complexity. FCC relies on web tech (JS based- react, angular, what have you) that has easy access and low setup complexity. Especially for Apple devices, those without apple products cannot develop that easily. And as @bernhard-hofmann asked before, how will a native app trump over PWAs in our case? I believe the requirements are simple enough for a PWA.

Overall, going native might be a speedbreaker in terms of development and community involvement. Please correct me if I'm wrong 😀

[vuksa]

@kaushalgautam Why do you think that there won't be enough mobile devs joining this quest? :)
I don't have anything against PWA, the only thing is most native mobile devs might not be able to provide a full contribution there.

In the end, as Quincy Larson said, we might have multiple mobile app projects and the best one will be selected as default one.

[kaushalgautam]

I get your point. @vuksa. Of course, the best solution should be adopted and I don't underestimate the number of mobile devs that would step up.
That being said, I just don't see a need to go the more difficult, deviated and less accessible way when there is no strict need for it. I have to make a case, the rest is up to the community and maintainers to decide :)

[Zeko369]

We should definitely start with a PWA. But what's wrong with react-native? Do we really need native for this?

[kelset]

👋
I would love to help with this - from my experience as an organiser having a mobile app would surely make life easier (ex. you have the tickets & guest lists offline).

I am also proposing that we use React Native for this since:

• it's not a performance heavy use case so no need for full native
• the web client is going to be in React

In particular, I think that Expo would be enough for this - it's quite powerful, more reliable than RN per se and offers a series of tools to make it easier to test & publish apps.

(also, I'm heavily involved with the RN open source ecosystem and I would love to help with this)

[espipj]

As I've read, the front end of the Web is going to be done in React, seems to me sensible build a multiplatform app with React Native, so that we can reuse the components. In terms of the PWA seems like an amazing idea as well (easier to get people in, nothing to install, no store interference), and react native already has react-native-web which provides an "easy" way to implement that. The new Twitter client for both mobile and desktop is a great example of what react-native-web is, and to be honest I don't see many performance issues with those PWA.

Just seen @kelset comment (he basically read my mind), and fully agree.

[srprkr]

So long as it has a good web mobile site or at least doesn’t continuously spam users to install another app.

[shangeethsivan]

I would vote for Flutter if we have enough devs out here who are interested. Else we can go with native(Kotlin/Swift). Recently our team worked on app for a small fest which was totally developed in flutter -> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.poshmark.poshfest&hl=en

If it is native we should be very fine with everything right from architecting the app. But Im not sure about flutter.

[bernhard-hofmann]

I would hope we'll have enough Devs from all camps involved for the tech stack to not be an issue.

My concern is the selection of stack and native vs. PWA before we agree the functionality / requirements.

If we start with an agreement on what we want users to be able to do, we'll be better equipped to make decisions on native vs. web.

That being said, I liked the idea that all client apps should use a common API, and we let nature take its course to find the most loved client/s.