Mobile apps

A mobile app is made for the phone first. A bar of tabs at the bottom, screens that fill the phone, buttons a thumb can reach. People add it to their home screen straight from the browser, and you can put it in Google Play and the App Store.

When to choose it

Pick Mobile App, the phone above the box on the dashboard, or say "a mobile app" in your request.

Every app Setherion builds works on a phone. Mobile App is for one that should feel like a phone app, not a website that fits on a phone.

What you get without asking

• A bar of tabs at the bottom, three to five, each with an icon and a short name, and a bar on top of every screen with its title.
• The app itself first. It opens on the first tab, with sample content already in it, never on a welcome page or a sign-in screen.
• The main action one tap away, on a tab of its own or on a round + button.
• Made for a thumb: large buttons, cards and lists, panels that slide up from the bottom.
• Room for the notch and the home bar, so nothing hides behind them on an iPhone.
• A Profile tab. When the app keeps data, people sign in there for real, with Google or with an email and a password, and what they add is saved on Setherion's database.

On a computer, the app sits in a column the width of a phone, so you see it the way it will be on one.

Ask like this

Name the tabs you want, or what people do in the app, and the one thing they do most.

A mobile app for a gym: today's classes, booking a place,
my bookings, and a profile with the membership

A mobile app to track expenses: add an expense in two taps,
categories, a monthly chart and a budget for each category

A mobile app for a bakery: the menu with photos, ordering
for pickup, and a loyalty card that counts the coffees

A mobile app for dog walkers: the day's walks in a list, each dog
with its owner's phone and notes, and a button to check in

Pick Mobile App and leave the box empty, and ideas appear under it. Pressing one puts it in the box, ready to change, and the arrow beside them, Other ideas, shows more.

On your phone

• While you build, the screen icon above the preview shows the app at phone size. After every build and every change the app is also measured at a phone's width, and when something sticks out a bar says Wider than a phone screen, with Fix with AI.
• On your own phone, publish it and open its address. Chrome offers Install app, and Safari on an iPhone Add to Home Screen. It then opens full screen, with its own icon, like an installed app.
• In the stores, it goes as a phone app people download from Google Play and the App Store. See Publish to app stores.

Make it yours

Good to know

• A mobile app built here runs in the browser, shaped like a phone app. For the stores it is wrapped as one, or turned into a full phone project. The two ways are explained in Publish to app stores.
• Ads and in-app purchases are built for games. See Games. A phone app that is not a game takes payments through Stripe instead.
• Inside the phone app people sign in with an email and a password. The Google button and emailed sign-in links hide themselves there.
• Apple accepts an app people can sign up to only if they can also delete their account. Ask for "a Delete account button on the Profile tab".
• With Power Seth a mobile app gets a settings screen that saves, search and filters on its lists, and an empty, loading and error state on every screen, even unasked. See Build modes.