Creating a cross-platform mobile application (1) - Introduction

December 14, 2020

Hey there!

As I suggested in my initial post, I want to create a cross-platform mobile application. I have never done this before, but the thought of creating one has been lingering on my mind for a long time and combining it with this blog: double-win I would say.

Let me start off by being completely honest with you: I have absolutely no clue how this is going to play out. Am I going to show the whole code on this page? Should I just show the “important” bits and refer to a repository for the rest? Should I upload any design concepts on this page? At this point, I am just going with the flow. Let’s see where this will get me.

Also, before really diving into the topic, I thought creating an initial post about the motivation and goals of this project would be cool. The objective of this post is to clearly state the mission and vision of this project. I also want to explain a little bit about what kind of app I am going to design and build.

Let me start with the mission. It’s quite simple: I want to create a mobile application that will be able to run on Android and iOS devices, because, firstly, I want to learn about the process of designing and implementing an app and, secondly, share the journey with the readers of this blog.

The vision behind this project is easily derived from its mission. The long term hope and dream is that this series can be used by anyone who is interested in mobile app development and is looking for a tutorial to start off. I am aspiring to become a better software developer through this project and hope to have the same effect on my readers.

That’s it. Quite simple, eh?

And without any further ado, the topic of the app. It shall be a mobile app in which you can browse short proverbs and idioms. Each proverbs needs an illustration and maybe even a small description with it. You could see it as a micro-blog. Not the most groundbreaking app, I know, but I think it’s perfect for a first project. A more selfish reason is that I love to read proverbs and this could the closest I can get to my personal “proverb dictionary”.

I’m not sure how the final app is going to look like, so I will just write down the first few things that come to my mind when thinking about the requirements:

A cool onboarding dialogue (I am 90% sure there won’t be any need for this but who cares? Let’s put it on the list).
Ability to annoy users and notify them when a new proverb is published.
Some kind of administration. I don’t want to add new proverbs via the code, because that would mean the user has to update the app each time (which would really suck).
Users should be able to share the proverbs that they like, e.g., via social media.
I think I will need some kind of navigation. You could be able to sort proverbs via category or “mood”.
Maybe a “like” button? Users could then have a history of previously liked proverbs. Or I use a “save” button. That would remove the social-media kinda vibe. Not really sure about this, yet.
Saving data to a user means that there needs to be some kind of login option. No clue how that should work 😄
Will a user need to be connected to the internet in order to use this app? Do I download and cache all proverbs at some point? This needs some serious thoughts.
And the biggest question: will this app even be published? If yes, how do I even get it into the different stores?

I think that’s more than enough for now. On a side note: I am writing this post as I figure out things so it obviously does not have the best structure. The reason I do this is because I want to make this series as “raw” as possible and show my thought process within it. Honestly, I am not sure if this is better than preparing and structuring a blog post after thorough preparation, but let’s give it a try. Maybe you have some feedback for me on this already? Feel free to contact me.

What’s next? Well, I think it’s time to think about the tools and technologies that are going to be behind this. For that, I am going to create another post. Stay tuned!

I hope this post gave you a brief overview of what is going to come and you are as excited as me about this!

Until the next time!