Is this one of those app builders that wraps my website into a mobile app ?
No this is not one of those do it yourself app builders. And no, we do not just wrap your website into a mobile app :). That would be a terrible experience for your users.
At AppBoss, we create native mobile apps that integrate directly with your WordPress database via the WordPress REST API and Custom APIs we have built for the various plugins we support. This allows you to manage your content from your WordPress dashboard, while providing a superior mobile experience for your users.
Do you share source code ?
After working on building AppBoss for almost 3 years now, we have invested lots of time and money to research, build and test this truly innovative solution. With mobile app development still being an untapped market in the WordPress ecosystem, many companies are wanting to offer mobile apps, but the costs of entering this market makes it very hard.
We’ve already seen various freelancers trying to replicate our designs, which is not such a big deal, because the quality is not there. Making our full source code available to potential competitors would not be a wise decision for us today.
Most of the AppBoss plugins are open source. We recognize that some businesses with in-house teams need access to the source code to continue extending their app’s functionality. The mobile app’s source code can definitely be provided under specific terms and conditions.
Can I see what the app looks like ? Can I try it ?
Absolutely! We have mobile app demos available for each one of the solutions we offer. This can give you a pretty good idea of what we will build for you. Except that your app will have your own branding, your own content, your own potential custom features and will be structured based on your project’s requirements! 🙂
iOS Demos
For iOS, you will need to download the Apple TestFlight App, which will allow you to download and view our demos.
The Apple store doesn’t allow businesses to upload app demos into the App Store. So there are two options to do it. Either you can upload a fake mobile app, and act as if it’s meant to be a demo, or you can use Apple’s provided process for giving users access to a beta app to try out 🙂
We like to respect the guidelines set by the companies we work with, so we chose to give you access to the demos via Apple’s Testflight, as recommended by the Apple review team.
Android Demos
For Android, you can download the AppBoss demos straight from the Google Play Store. Click to view the AppBoss demos.
Do I need a website to have you guys build my mobile app ?
No you don’t. In fact, if you’d rather run your community, membership program or online courses on mobile only, you can do that!
So think of it this way, we have 3 main components:
- Your WordPress installation with a database and WP admin dashboard
- Your Website, which is the front end interface that your users see
- Your Mobile App
#1 is always required, and allows you to store and manage the content. You can then have both #2 and #3 or just stick to one of them. If you have a mobile interface for your users to consume your content, then your website becomes optional and vice versa.
You can also choose to keep your website’s front end limited to the marketing pages, promoting your courses, community or membership program, and then, once someone signs up, you can give them access via the mobile app.
Do I get both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store apps ?
Absolutely. We publish both an Android app and an iOS app for you. However, you are not obligated to have both if your users primarily use Android, or if they primarily use iOS.
Will the app have my own branding, including logo, colours etc…. ?
Absolutely. The AppBoss team gathers information about your business and branding, and then works with our design team to customize and match the look and feel of your mobile app to your brand.
The team adjusts fonts, colors, backgrounds and more. The team also creates a custom app icon, home icon and splash screen, giving your app a premium look.
What if I want more features ?
We recognize that every project is unique, with needs for different features and customizations. Our team is always there to help, when you need to extend your app’s functionality and feature set.
What if something breaks or I don’t know how to use something ?
Your AppBoss license comes with priority support, so we’re always just a message away. We can give you directions, answer questions and check your site as needed.
Is this one of those app builders where I get a downloadable file and have to do everything myself ? NO!
Absolutely not!
We don’t just give you plugins and code, and let you deal with it. Our core mission is to make high quality mobile apps more accessible, both from a cost and technical standpoint.
A team is assigned to your project with a Project Manager as your main point of contact. The team handles the process of creating, customizing, and publishing your mobile app, saving you from the pain involved in doing everything yourself.
Do I really need a mobile app ?
If you’re building an online community, a membership program, or sell online courses, then the answer is obviously YES. In fact, your mobile app is more important than your website! There is so much to stay about this subject, but we’ll start by listing a few statistics here that speak for themselves, until we write up a full blog post on the subject.
- More than 70% of YouTube viewing happens on mobile devices (Source: Comscore)
- 95.1% of Facebook users worldwide access the social network via a smartphone
- 86% of the time users spend on Twitter is on a mobile device.
- In 2017, 60% of LinkedIn traffic came from mobile devices. It’s much higher now.
- The number of mobile-only users (27%) has grown, now surpassing desktop only users (14%) (Google)
- 64% of learners find accessing their training content from a mobile device essential (Towards Maturity)
- 43% of Mobile learners see improved productivity levels compared to non-mobile users (Towards Maturity)
- 89% of smartphone users download apps, 50% of which are used for learning (Towards Maturity)
- 46% of learners use mobile learning before they go to sleep at night (Learner Events)
- 71% of millennials say they connect more with mobile learning than L&D activities delivered via desktop or formal methods. (Gallup)
- Smartphone owners complete course material 45% faster than those using a computer (Lynda)
Can I see some other projects you completed before ?
Absolutely. We’ve had the opportunity to work on some really cool projects with our clients. You can view some featured projects here.
Do I have to pay commissions to the Apple App Store or Google Play Store ?
It really depends on the business model and the goals you want to achieve with your mobile app.
The Google Play store is flexible with allowing you to sell digital content on your app, without requiring you to use Google Play in-app billing to sell digital goods such as courses, memberships and others, if you also provide access to the same content outside of the mobile app (such as from your website).
Read more about the Google Play Store payments guidelines: https://play.google.com/about/monetization-ads/
The Apple App Store allows you to avoid using Apple’s in-app purchases if your app is a companion app to an existing website, and if the app is not used to promote your product or program on your website or elsewhere.
Read more about the Apple App Store payments guidelines: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#payments
Do I need to maintain my content in two places ?
No you don’t. That’s the beauty of having a mobile app built specifically for WordPress.
You manage your content in one place for both your website and mobile app.
When login to your WordPress dashboard and you update your course, lesson, quiz or any other content that displays in your app, the new content is instantly visible on your app, just like it is on the website.
Do I need to contact you every time I want to add more courses, edit courses etc… ?
Absolutely not! 🙂 You manage all the content visible on your app, via your WordPress admin dashboard.
Will the app be published on my own Apple App Store account and my own Google Play Store account ?
Absolutely! One of the first steps we go through when you first start working with AppBoss, is having you create an Apple Developer account ($99/year) and a Google developer account ($25 one time fee). We do this early, so that your account is ready as soon as your app is ready for publishing.
How is your pricing structured ?
There are two parts to our pricing.
- The AppBoss product license: The license is paid yearly, and provides you with access to the AppBoss plugins and mobile app. With an active license, you have access to new software updates, and priority support from our team.
The initial setup costs: Once you start working with AppBoss, we assign a team to work on your project, with a project manager as your main point of contact. Your team consists of a project manager, a designer, a mobile app developer, a WordPress developer and a quality assurance tester. Each team member is responsible for a specific aspect of the project.
Depending on the features you want to have setup, and depending if you need additional custom features built into your app, the amount of time and effort required to complete a project can differ from one project to the other.
Before the project start, we provide you with an itemized estimate for your project, based on the number of hours required to complete the project. We only bill you for the designer, the mobile app and WordPress developer’s time. The project manager and the quality assurance testers’ costs come blended into our hourly rate.
What is unique about AppBoss is that we sit in the middle between a do it yourself app builder service and a custom development agency, giving you the best of both worlds.
Your mobile app costs you a fraction of what it would cost to build custom, but at the same time, you’re not left alone dealing with the painful process of creating your own app and getting it published into the app stores, our team handles it all for you.
Will I need to update my app all the time ? Do I have to pay you for that every time ?
Your mobile app on the app stores doesn’t have to always be updated. All content updates are done via your WP Dashboard.
Your app only needs to be updated when you want to take advantage of new AppBoss features, or when there’s a critical update such as Apple coming up with a newly shaped phone screen that requires an update to all the apps.
Will the app always work properly with LearnDash and other plugins with every update ?
Our team tracks new updates in the various plugins we support. We are in direct communication with the LearnDash team as well as the team behind BuddyPress and bbPress.
We get direct access to the new software beta updates, before they go live, allowing us to test the new versions early.
Unlike a WordPress theme or a mobile app that wraps your website into an app, your AppBoss mobile app’s interface does not use any of the plugin templates, so any updates to those plugins’ templates do not affect your app.
Your app can only be affected by the rare changes to the data storage structure of the plugin.
Why it’s important that the app is native ?
Native apps are a crucial part of what makes an app successful.
We use the React Native framework to build native mobile apps. This is the same technology used by Facebook, Instagram, Airbnb, Walmart, Tesla, Soundcloud and many other popular apps we use everyday. There is a reason why these major companies trust React Native and build native apps 🙂
Apps that are not native use web technology that was built for making websites, not for creating mobile apps. The use of web technology in a mobile app translates into a slow and less than ideal experience for your users.
It is critical that your users enjoy using the mobile app that you launch for them, otherwise, what’s the point of doing all that ? Research says that only 16% of users would give an app more than two attempts, if it doesn’t work well the first time. A poor mobile app experience is likely to discourage users from using an app again.
At AppBoss we build native mobile apps and do our best to follow the iOS human interface design guidelines and the Google material design guidelines, to give your users a premium experience consistent with the popular apps they use everyday.
