How I built a Mobile App in LiveCode and Took Over the World

I’ve had an idea for an app for a few years now, and made one or two abortive attempts at writing it.  I’d get so far, maybe put a few screen mock-ups together, write a bit of code, run into some walls like “How would do I do this?” or “How would that work?”, and then with the daily grind, family responsibilities and life in general, I’d run out of steam and give up.

The Pandemic – a Positive?

Now you wouldn’t think that a pandemic could have a positive and beneficial effect, but oddly enough it did.  I think people in general re-evaluated their work, their lives and their priorities.  Many of us started working from home, which might have its frustrations, but also its benefits. Personally, I gained by not having a 1 hour commute each morning and each evening, and this, amongst other things, gave me the breathing space and clarity to re-start my app development.

Finding an idea

To stand at least the slightest chance of being successful, you do have to have a good app idea and some understanding of who the users will be and what they want an app to do.  Let me give you some background.  I have a few friends, one a Chef, one a Web Designer and another a Store Manager. Over a period of years, one by one they ‘jumped ship’ leaving their employments and set up their own Window Cleaning businesses. (I know, it’s not what you expect is it!)  One thing that they all wanted was an iPhone app to manage their business, and at the time, there wasn’t anything in the App Store that suited their requirements. 

Fulfilling a need

Fast forward to 2020 and yes, the App Store has several apps for doing just this. A quick poll of my friends found that they didn’t like them and weren’t using them for a number of reasons.  Firstly they are mostly subscription apps where they have to pay a monthly fee. Secondly they were either too complicated, or had lots of features (some of which were just eye-candy) that they viewed as largely redundant. And thirdly they didn’t work the way the Window Cleaners worked, so the apps felt awkward or clunky to use.  They also explained that having to use always-connected apps was a pain, as they don’t always have a phone signal where they work, and they don’t all have unlimited data packages.

Basic Market Research

Before jumping in with both feet, I decided to find out a bit more about the Window Cleaning sector. I mean, I couldn’t spend months designing and building an app for just a handful of potential customers… it’s just not financially viable.  Research showed me that there are a substantial number of Windows Cleaners in the UK, some are multi-staff businesses, but a huge proportion of them are sole traders.  Then I looked at smart phone uptake by Window Cleaners. Based on information from forums, facebook groups and general research I found that a very high number of them use smart phones. (Don’t most people these days!). 

What’s your niche?

Armed with this new knowledge I decided that the app would need to be targeted at Window Cleaners who are sole traders.  It should also be a one-time purchase instead of a subscription, and it should be self-contained with data being stored on the iPhone and no requirement for an always on connection to a cloud database. While a subscription model would have meant potential recurring revenue on a monthly basis, I decided that I could live with the one-time purchase model. 

Planning, planning, and more planning

The next thing I did was to document and map out a typical Windows Cleaners workflow. You may think Window Cleaning is super simple, but at the end of the day, they have a model like many other service oriented business. A sales & quoting process, a fulfilment process, an accounting process and a scheduling process. I mapped out the different workflows with post-it notes and stuck them on the wall. You can do this using project management tools if you like, but with post-it notes you can see everything at once when it’s on your wall. And changing a workflow is as simple as moving a post-it note from one place to another.

Designing the UI

Having identified and documented the workflows, I then researched app design and ergonomics. Although you have a completely blank canvas to work with in LiveCode, most users like and expect mobile apps to feel familiar, even if they’ve never used your particular app before. This means they expect certain things to be in certain places. Looking at Apple’s app design documentation, you can get a really good idea of what should go where and how much screen real-estate to use for various things. Looking at other apps helps you to see what looks good and more importantly what looks terrible. Using these resources I came up with a design which I sketched out on paper. I showed it to one of my Window Cleaning buddies and got a thumbs up. 

It’s probably not the most exhaustive market research, but being a one-man-band myself, I don’t have the resources or time to go and question hundreds of people to get too many opinions on design and workflow.

Build and test

Bringing all these elements together I started building the app with LiveCode in April 2020. After a few weeks of coding I realised that I really should try my LiveCode ‘app’ under iOS, so later in April I setup the Xcode iOS simulator. At this point it’s worth noting how important this is, as there are some things that you have to use the iOS simulator for. For one thing you can’t ‘test’ any of the mobile controls, such as mobilePick or mobilePickDate without it.  LiveCode makes it really easy to test your apps on the iOS Simulator, all you do is hit the ‘Test’ button on the LiveCode toolbar and your app is magically built and installed on the iOS simulator. 

TestFlight

I successfully tested various builds within the iOS simulator throughout May, June and July and in August took the next step of installing builds locally onto my iPhone.  This really makes you feel like you’re getting somewhere and getting your LiveCode app onto your phone is just a case of Build, then Drag and Drop.  Having your development app on your iPhone is very cool as you have something to show people who are interested and want to see it (although with the pandemic, this really wasn’t an option).  During September, October & November I spent time debugging my code and refining features and functionality, then in December, I felt I was ready to put it in front of the test team – my Window Cleaning friends. With a little help from LiveCode support, I was able to upload my app to the AppStore using Transporter and move the app into FlightTest for my testers.  FlightTest is, in my opinion, invaluable as you can restrict access to your app to just your test team.  Not surprisingly they all started using it as a live product, and after rooting out and fixing a couple of gremlins in my code, the app was launched on the AppStore on the 7th January 2021.

A sale!

That’s not where the story ends though. My testers have all taken on the app and use it day to day for their business. I gifted them a copy for their help which is more than reasonable. In addition to this I made my first sale on the AppStore within 48 hours of the app going live. I have to be honest that this astounded me as I’d only told some of my friends about it.  

Development of the app can now proceed at a more leisurely pace. I’ve plans to add new features and new functionality over the coming months, and also build the App for Android, which by all accounts will be relatively simple with LiveCode. 

With LiveCode I’ve been able to go from zero (no app) to a researched, fully functional, saleable, business app on the AppStore in just 9 months. Am I a seasoned App developer. No, this is my first one. Did I work full-time on the app? No, I have a job so I worked on the app for a few hours here and a few hours there each week. What’s the App called? Gluggy – you can find it in the AppStore. Am I a millionaire now? Not by a long shot! Should you have a go at creating an app? Absolutely and do it with LiveCode!