Mobile apps that survive their second OS update
The hard part of a mobile app is not the launch — it is the next three years. iOS and Android ship breaking changes annually, app store policies shift quarterly, and the team that built v1 is usually gone by v3. We build mobile products designed to last that timeline, not just clear the first review.
Engineering for the five-year app, not the launch demo
Most mobile teams optimize for the launch — the demo, the App Store submission, the first thousand installs. We optimize for what happens after: iOS 26 dropping a private API your app depended on, Google Play tightening data-safety requirements, your engineer leaving and the codebase becoming opaque overnight, the moment the analytics SDK gets banned in one of your markets. The architectural decisions made in week one of a build determine how survivable those moments are. We make them deliberately.
- Native iOS (Swift / SwiftUI)
- Native Android (Kotlin / Jetpack Compose)
- React Native & Expo
- Flutter Development
- Offline-First Architecture
- Server-Driven UI Patterns
- On-Device AI (CoreML, Gemini Nano)
- OS Migration & Long-Horizon Maintenance
- App Store / Google Play Submission & Review Management
- Native Module Bridging & Hybrid Architectures
Native When It Matters, Cross-Platform When It Does Not
We choose native (Swift, Kotlin) or cross-platform (React Native, Flutter) per feature, not per project. Camera, BLE, AR, audio pipelines get native modules; CRUD, settings, and most business logic stays cross-platform. The split is documented before build, not negotiated at the finish line.
Server-Driven UI Architecture
When your app and backend are tightly coupled, every minor change requires an app-store release cycle. Server-driven UI inverts this: the backend describes the screen, the app renders it. Result: business logic changes ship in minutes instead of weeks, and the app survives without re-submission through long-tail feature evolution.
Offline-First, Conflict-Aware Sync
Every interaction works without a network connection by default. Local state syncs in the background with explicit conflict-resolution rules per data type — not the "last-write-wins" anti-pattern that silently corrupts data. SQLite + custom sync layer or proven tools like Replicache, depending on the consistency model you need.
Everything you need to succeed
Native When It Matters, Cross-Platform When It Does Not
We choose native (Swift, Kotlin) or cross-platform (React Native, Flutter) per feature, not per project. Camera, BLE, AR, audio pipelines get native modules; CRUD, settings, and most business logic stays cross-platform. The split is documented before build, not negotiated at the finish line.
Server-Driven UI Architecture
When your app and backend are tightly coupled, every minor change requires an app-store release cycle. Server-driven UI inverts this: the backend describes the screen, the app renders it. Result: business logic changes ship in minutes instead of weeks, and the app survives without re-submission through long-tail feature evolution.
Offline-First, Conflict-Aware Sync
Every interaction works without a network connection by default. Local state syncs in the background with explicit conflict-resolution rules per data type — not the "last-write-wins" anti-pattern that silently corrupts data. SQLite + custom sync layer or proven tools like Replicache, depending on the consistency model you need.
On-Device AI Features
CoreML on iOS, Gemini Nano on Android, ONNX Runtime cross-platform. On-device inference for vision, summarization, voice, and embeddings — with cloud fallback when device capability is insufficient. Keeps user data on-device for privacy-sensitive features, and works offline by default.
App Security Beyond the Basics
Certificate pinning, jailbreak/root detection, encrypted local storage with hardware-backed keys, biometric auth with secure enclave/StrongBox. Anti-tampering checks for high-value apps. SOC 2, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS guardrails built into the architecture, not glued on for audit.
Notifications That Do Not Get Disabled
Behaviour-triggered, deep-link aware, A/B tested. APNs and FCM with delivery analytics, opt-in flows that earn permission instead of demanding it, and quiet-hours / preference UI that respects users. The notification strategy is the difference between a 30-day retention rate of 12% and 38%.
Real-Time Features That Hold Up
Live chat, collaborative editing, real-time dashboards. Built on Websockets with proper reconnection backoff, presence tracking, and message ordering guarantees — not Firebase shortcuts that fail at the first network blip.
Analytics, Crash Reporting & Performance
Firebase Analytics or Amplitude wired up with a defined event taxonomy (not the typical "click_button_42" mess). Sentry or Crashlytics with source-map uploads so production crashes resolve to real line numbers. Performance monitoring on startup, scroll, network — the metrics that actually correlate with retention.
In-App Purchases & Monetization
StoreKit 2 on iOS, Google Play Billing v7 on Android. Subscription state synced to your backend with server-to-server notifications, restore flows that handle every edge case, and StoreKit testing in CI so subscription bugs never reach production.
App Store / Play Store Submission & Review Management
Fastlane CI/CD for both stores, ASO-optimized metadata, screenshots and previews tuned for conversion, and an active review-response workflow. We handle App Review back-and-forth so a rejected build does not delay your launch by two weeks.
How we build with you
Strategy: Native, Cross-Platform, or Both
A short architecture decision phase. We map your features against native-vs-cross-platform suitability and produce a per-feature recommendation with cost, risk, and maintenance trade-offs. The doc is the contract for what gets built where.
Design Validated With Real Devices
High-fidelity Figma prototypes plus on-device walkthroughs on actual hardware (low-end Android, latest iPhone, tablet). Catches the rendering, input, and gesture problems that desktop Figma cannot show.
Build With CI/CD From Day One
Fastlane pipelines, TestFlight + internal Play distribution, automated UI tests on every PR. You and stakeholders install the build on a real device after every sprint — no "I will email you a TestFlight invite" friction.
Submission & Hypercare
App Store and Play Store submission managed end-to-end, including review responses. 30-day post-launch hypercare with daily crash and performance monitoring. Phased rollout starting at 10% so a bad build never ships to 100% of users.
OS Migration & Long-Horizon Maintenance
Annual iOS and Android major-version reviews, deprecation warnings caught early via static analysis, third-party SDK upgrade planning. The boring work that keeps an app alive past year three.
Built with proven technologies
Common questions
Honest answer: it depends on the team that will maintain the app, not just the features. React Native is right when your web team will also own mobile, when most features are CRUD-shaped, and when shipping speed beats native polish. Flutter is right when you have no existing web/native team and want one stack for both platforms with strong UI consistency. Native is right when you need deep hardware integration (AR, Bluetooth, custom camera pipelines), maximum platform performance, or your engineering org already has separate iOS and Android specialists. We have shipped all three; the answer comes from a one-day architecture conversation, not a brochure.
Three habits. (1) We track Apple and Google developer beta program announcements quarterly and surface breaking changes in a written assessment before the public release. (2) Static analysis in CI flags deprecation warnings as build failures, not noise. (3) Every app we maintain gets a scheduled "OS migration review" annually — usually 2-5 days of focused work covering API replacements, behavioural changes, and store policy updates. The result: apps that survive iOS 27 the way they survived iOS 25.
A typical MVP takes 10-16 weeks from discovery to first App Store submission. Complex apps with offline sync, real-time features, or AI integrations land in the 20-32 week range. The biggest delay risk is almost never engineering — it is requirements churn, App Store review (which can add 1-3 weeks unpredictably), and third-party SDK approvals. We surface those risks in week one so the timeline reflects reality.
We handle the back-and-forth. Most rejections are mechanical — privacy manifest, age-rating mismatch, IDFA usage, payment policy. We have responded to several hundred App Review communications and know which battles to argue (success rate ~70% on first appeal for legitimate cases) versus which to fix and resubmit. Total median time from rejection to approval in our engagements: under 24 hours.
Yes — every mobile engagement covers both platforms unless you explicitly want only one. We have dedicated iOS and Android engineers plus React Native and Flutter specialists. The platform-split decision is made per feature during discovery.
You will own everything. Source code transferred via your GitHub organization. App Store Connect and Google Play Console operated under your Apple Developer and Google account (we get added as admins; we do not own the listing). All certificates, signing keys, and provisioning profiles documented and transferred at handover. No vendor lock-in by design.
Yes — three options. (1) 30-day hypercare included in every build engagement at no extra cost. (2) Monthly retainer for ongoing feature development, OS migration work, and SDK updates — most clients pick this for the first 12-18 months post-launch. (3) Annual maintenance contract for established apps that have stabilized, covering security patching, OS migrations, and store policy compliance. We will recommend the right one based on your roadmap, not the biggest one.
Same SLA as our web work: patch in under 2 hours for critical advisories on apps we maintain. We monitor the CVE database against the installed dependency manifest, run npm/Gradle audit on every CI build, and have a documented rollback procedure if a patch causes regressions. The Next.js GHSA-26hh-7cqf-hhc6 advisory in May 2026 was patched across our 8 web deployments in 90 minutes — the mobile playbook is structurally identical.
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