Build App Development
Native and web apps built around real business needs.
Some apps belong on your customers’ phones, installed from the App Store or Google Play. Others belong in a browser, replacing the shared spreadsheet five people edit and nobody owns. We build both, and we tell you which one the job needs before anything gets built.
The service
What is app development?
App development turns a process your business already runs into software built to run it, whether that software lives on a phone or in a browser.
The difference from a website is what it does. A website publishes information and waits. An app takes an input, does something with it and keeps a record: a customer reorders from their phone, a fitter books a slot on site, a manager approves a quote.
We build native apps for iOS and Android when the job needs the phone itself: the camera, location, push notifications or working without signal. We build web apps when it does not, because there is nothing to install and everyone is on the new version the moment it ships.
Designed and built in-house Deliverables
What’s included.
Software scoped against the hours it removes or the sales it brings in, built on foundations another developer could pick up.
Native iOS and Android apps
Apps your customers or field team install from the App Store and Google Play, built to use the camera, location, notifications and offline working.
Web apps and customer portals
A login where customers check orders, pay invoices and find documents without emailing you for them. Works in any browser, with nothing to install.
Internal tools and admin systems
The job sheet, the quoting screen, the approval queue that chases people for you. The unglamorous software a business actually runs on.
Databases and integrations
Properly structured data behind every screen, connected to the tools you already run on, so reporting is a query rather than an afternoon in Excel.
Releases, hosting and support
App Store and Google Play submission, hosting, monitoring and updates, with the code and the documentation handed to you.
Why it matters
Manual processes have a ceiling.
A spreadsheet works until two people need it at once. Then you get versions, and versions mean somebody is working from the wrong number without knowing it. Nobody notices until a job is quoted twice or an order ships against stock that was already sold.
Customer-facing work hits the same ceiling. If reordering, booking or checking a delivery means ringing the office, every new customer adds admin rather than margin. An app on their phone or in their browser breaks that link, and the hours it gives back are the thing worth measuring.
See the results →What you get
One version of the truth.
Software judged on what stops happening: the duplicate entry, the phone call to check on an order, and the process only one person understands.
One place the answer lives
The app, the portal and the office all read the same record, so nobody quotes a job twice or sells stock that has already gone.
A record of who did what
Changes are logged and permissions are real, which matters the first time somebody asks why a number moved.
Yours to take with you
The code, the documentation and the hosting are handed over. No lock-in by accident.
How we work
From the worst job to working software.
Watch the work
We sit with the people who will use it, staff or customers, and find the step that costs the most, rather than starting from a wish list.
Scope one phase
A first version small enough to build quickly and useful enough to use on day one. This is where native or web gets decided.
Build with real users
Put in front of the people using it, on their own phones and screens, while it is still cheap to change.
Release, support, hand over
Live in the app stores or on your domain, monitored and backed up, with the code and the documentation yours from the start.
Our approach
Scoped small, shipped early.
The fastest way to waste money on app development is to specify everything up front and build for a year. We start with the part that hurts most, put it in front of the people who will use it, and change it while changing it is still cheap.
Native or web is decided by the job, not by what we would rather build. If a web app does everything your users need, it is quicker to ship and cheaper to keep updated, with no app store review between you and a fix. If the job needs the phone itself, we build native and explain why.
We build it to be handed over, too: clean code, written documentation and a repository that is yours. You stay with us by choice rather than by default.
Talk it through with us →Keep exploring
More from Build.
Questions
Frequently asked.
Both. Native apps for iOS and Android are installed from the App Store or Google Play and can use the camera, location, push notifications and offline working. Web apps run in a browser on any phone, tablet or laptop with nothing to install. We recommend whichever the job needs, and we will not sell you a website in a wrapper and call it an app.
By what the app has to do. If people use it out on site with patchy signal, need notifications, or scan and photograph things, native is usually right. If it is a portal, an internal tool or something used mostly at a desk, a web app is quicker to ship and cheaper to maintain. We settle it while scoping, before money goes on the build.
A web development project builds the site your customers browse. App development builds the software people use to get something done: the app on their phone, the portal behind the login, the tool your team uses all day. Often the two are the same project.
A first useful version of a focused app is usually weeks rather than months, because we deliberately scope it small. Native apps also need time for App Store and Google Play review before launch. We quote the first phase properly and tell you what we do not yet know, rather than putting a number on a year of work.
You do. The repository, the documentation and the hosting details are handed over, so another developer could take it on without us.
Let’s talk
Still running it on a spreadsheet?
Tell us what the file does and who depends on it. We will tell you what it would take to rebuild properly, what it would give back in hours, and whether it is worth doing yet. Start the conversation, or see everything inside Build.
