Mobile Native

Phones are hostile environments: flaky networks, small screens, aggressive OS policies, and stores that review you. Build for the device, not the demo.

When to use

• Building or maintaining native/shell apps (Capacitor/React Native/native toolchains).
• Android/iOS release prep, store submissions, or CI builds (APK/AAB/IPA).
• Parity checks between a PWA and its store app.

Method

1. Constraints first: screen sizes, safe areas, touch targets (≥44px), battery/thermal, background limits, permissions — design for the worst device in scope.
2. Offline-first: local store as the truth for user data; sync with retry/queue; visible sync state (pending/failed) — no spinners-forever; conflict rules documented.
3. Platform citizenship: back button/gestures, notification permission timing, deep links, lifecycle (pause/resume) tested; haptics/gestures as seasoning, never the only path.
4. Builds: pinned toolchain + SDK versions; deterministic builds; signing keys in the keystore — never in repos; versionCode/versionName discipline; CI builds the artifact, humans sign off.
5. Release discipline: staged rollout (internal → beta → prod); store metadata (screenshots, privacy labels, data-safety forms) prepared; crash reporting live BEFORE 100% rollout; halt-rollout rollback plan.
6. Testing: device matrix (low-end + current + largest font size); offline/slow-network tests; upgrade tests (old app → new data); accessibility pass (TalkBack/VoiceOver).
7. Privacy: collect the minimum; disclose what you collect in-store and in-app (privacy-compliance); analytics without PII (product-analytics).

Quality gates

• Offline + slow-network behavior verified; sync states visible.
• Signing keys outside repos; builds reproducible from CI.
• Crash reporting + rollout plan in place before prod release.
• Accessibility pass on primary flows; largest font size tested.

Red lines

• No secrets in the app bundle; no permissions without a feature needing them; no untested upgrade path.

Related

frontend-engineering · privacy-compliance · ci-cd-pipeline.