Things I'm into now - Converting web app into Mobile App

A quick update on one of the things I am up to now (Yeah, I am stupid, get involved in so many projects all at a time).

I am just trying to create an eCommerce website with my friend. He has a business idea that we wanted to try.

It will be local business related - I'm not interested to discuss all of it now. But I was building an eCommerce website, which is just easy with WooCommerce but it has some custom features which is not that common, so we are struggling.

Also, for the business to be successful, we think a mobile app will do a better job.

I do not have programming experience, but I figure out a small front end and UI related stuff but have no experience with app development. And my friend has some coding experience, but not enough to completely handle complete full-stack development also not experience with Mobile app development.

So we are trying to figure out the easiest, fastest and cheapest way to build one.

Easiest, fastest and cheapest doesn't work well together - we understand that. But the challenge is what entrepreneurs live for. So, do we. We will try our best.

Also by cheapest I mean we want to spend no money at all. But if it is really less, then we can think of.

Another reason paying money for developers is not useful for us because - with the cheap price we are likely to get cheap services, the quality will suck. And we can not hire someone for fulltime, or engage him/her every now and then whenever there is a bug because we lack money. So, we need more control over development. We need to learn every bit of it, so that in future if there is a bug we are able to fix it, or there some feature to be added we can do that ourselves.

I personally appreciate the work developers do but we not in the situation to hire one.

So, here are some of the thing I'm trying.

WordPress Plugins to convert websites into Mobile App

I have tried a few services like Appmaker, Wordapp, AppMySite and so on. I will talk a little about my experience with all.

I tried AppMaker, it created APK nicely. But, it is exactly not what we wanted. The website theme had a nice design, and it was not reflecting on the app. The app had some generic design, which was good, but we wanted the design to look a certain way, and especially we wanted the app to retain the website's design. The app allows editing the style, but I've at least 2 years experience with WordPress and 7 minutes with the app. Of course, I am not ready to design the app with the tool completely new to me.

And then it was in a trial, the services cost a lot. Not worth it. Anyway, the app looked good, but not something we wanted.

Well, I couldn't use it because my partner already made an app with AppMySite, and it will not allow me to generate an App with the same website. It is not a WordPress Plugin I guess. But it is pretty popular and they had some generous free service, and the paid service also was not that expensive. It was $19 a month. And the paid one allows retaining websites design in the app. It is something we would try if we wanted to spend some money.

I saw a few videos on YouTube and WordApp seemed promising, but while searching on Google I figured out the App got banned from WordPress plugin directory, the October of 2019, due to some violation.

I still wanted to give a try. The plugin was not available, also I knew that even though I manage to get the plugin, it will not be enough. Their service might be closed and which converted the website.

Yet, I wanted to give a shot.

I went to way back machine and found some screenshots from early 2019, managed to download the plugin from there.

I installed modified the design, it was comparatively good, it allowed me to do all within WordPress dashboard in contrast to others where I had to do it within their websites' dashboards which I am as comfortable. But once I finished them I had to click on publish and it would send me the APK on my mail. And the service was down I never received the email.

Using Webview in Android

Before trying WordApp I have come up with another Idea. That I would not create a native app, but somehow just show everything like a browser. I figured out Webview is the thing. Yes, I have '0' in android development so all terms are new to me, I knew something like this obviously exists.

I know the experience won't be even close to the experience of a native app. But, it will have our main functions.

And truth be told this is something what I originally wanted. I would just design a mobile design with Elemnetor, custom header and footer everything, and with some simple trick generate a Mobile app.

But I haven't tried yet. I am stuck at home with mobile data, and couldn't download Android studio in one shot.

Today (17.05.2020) morning I finally downloaded Android Studio, but haven't installed and tried yet. So, stay tuned if want to know what happens the next.

What next?

Now I am really not interested in what actually happens with my original project, but explore how we can create a very Basic App with WordPress.

I believe it quite makes sense just to design in WordPress with page builders like Elementor and display the same on Mobile App. The very basic app, built with ease.

Maybe just the Webview of the website wouldn't be good enough for Play Store and App Store. Especially getting published in the App store is very unlikely. Anyway if it makes sense for your business you can even allow users to download the .apk from your website.

At least, for some initial days, you can work with it, you can use it as a prototype and do market research get feedback on you idea and then decide if you should invest in building the native app.

If there is nothing like this available, I am considering learning programming and build one on my own. And that I can provide as SasS. 

So, if you want to update about the project also if you won't get early access if I progress with the latter project, pls drop a comment and check back later. Also, you can follow me and message on Twitter or Instagram to ask questions, so when I release something I will personally message you and let you know.