Web App vs. Mobile App

Why isn’t the mobile applications (specifically for iOS/iPadOS) more like the Web app in layout and style. The web app mirrors the desktop experience pretty closely, and it would be preferred (at least to me) that the mobile version match that experience, especially for these powerful tablets now. Maybe a phone version would be different than a tablet app, but I’m not sure. Any insight here would be great. Thanks.

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Alan Palmer (Logos)

A big part of that is historical. You always start from where you are.

When our mobile apps were first developed many years ago, there was no web app. Tablets didn't exist either.

As these things all came to be, we've shifted and adjusted our applications accordingly but there haven't been any huge ground-up rewrites.

We now do a good deal of our software development across desktop/web/mobile and share as much code and design as possible. Features like Factbook, Bible Study Builder, Search, and Sermon Builder are some examples of that philosophy. We are working right now on bringing the desktop/web dashboard to mobile.

At the same time, the form factor on phones is quite unique. You're not wrong—many modern tablets are more desktop-like than phone-like. However, having a distinct app for tablets is quite expensive to develop and maintain. Meanwhile tablet usage (albeit strategically important to us) just isn't as popular in the market.

Like I said earlier, you always start from where you are. Today, we are here. But we continue to lean in and invest in our cross-platform strategy. We aspire to bring as much parity to those platforms as we can while we also maintain the sometimes unique use cases that exist.

It is a complex pursuit and your feedback is valuable as we continue to navigate from where we are to where we are going. If there are particular features or aspects of desktop/web that you miss on your mobile device, feel free to let us know.

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DMB

Well, it works out to just how many apps can FL support (along with platforms). Each platform cost works out to less feature development on each.

The compromise: web on mobile.

Alan Palmer (Logos)

A big part of that is historical. You always start from where you are.

When our mobile apps were first developed many years ago, there was no web app. Tablets didn't exist either.

As these things all came to be, we've shifted and adjusted our applications accordingly but there haven't been any huge ground-up rewrites.

Jeremy Writebol

Hey thanks Andrew — that's a really helpful answer. I think the answer to your "particular features" is related more to a workflow/UI environment than it is to anything. Having everything (Bible text, passage guide, commentaries) on one tabbed page vs multiple pages is one step in that direction for me on the iPad. I'm at the point where I'd like my experience on my iPad to be as close to that on the desktop, since I use my iPad for so much study/content creation/writing, over just using it like an eReader.