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Show HN: Retool Mobile

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Re: Show HN: Retool Mobile

#81

Post by pmontra »

majikandy wrote: post #42
matlin wrote: post #5

I wonder how long before Apple blocks this. They seem to be pretty hostile to these types of apps and even limited Expo's ability to load projects on iOS if you weren't the direct developer[1]. Curious if Retool got explicit permission to do this. [1] https://blog.expo.dev/upcoming-limitations-to-ios-expo-clien...

AppSheet do it too and they are owned by Google now, if Apple lets Google do it, I’d think Retool are fine?

Not necessarily. Apple can make a specific deal with Google that go beyond the general terms of service of the App Store. This applies to any pair of other companies and any service owned by one of them. It's not different from an AGPL project offering commercial licenses for using the source code in a proprietary way.

Furthermore there are some apps that Apple can't do without to be able to sell their devices IMHO. Examples: Gmail, video streaming services, banking. If any of those apps from well entrenched incumbents won't like to play by the rules I think that Apple has to make a special deal with them or risk losing sales to Android competitors.

Smaller companies don't have any leverage.

Re: Show HN: Retool Mobile

#82

Post by manmal »

shawiz wrote: post #69
manmal wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the sparse amount of native components that comes with them. Need a native map view, or maybe AR? Overlay them with your own custom markers? Go native or at least React Native. One single tiny component that‘s missing will force you back to native code. And do you really want to invest months of work before realizing that you need to reimplement everything?

We are working on custom components for Retool Mobile. With custom components, we hope to give folks the ability to paint whatever component they need on the Retool canvas but there will of course be scenarios where retool isn't the right choice. We also build escape hatches where you can write JavaScript anywhere in Retool. We like to think we can cover a very broad base, especially in the scenarios in which Retool…

I applaud your efforts, and I will consider Retool for small projects (PoCs etc). If that's the niche you are aiming for, perfect.

Re: Show HN: Retool Mobile

#83

Post by Cwizard »

sirjaz wrote: post #50

When will retool be able to do this for native desktop apps? Especially for Windows. Otherwise, you are leaving 2+ billion active devices off the table

You can access a web version from desktop right? In my experience a web version is more accessible than a desktop version. A significant percentage of desktops are locked down: schools, libraries, internet cafes, corporates, …

Is there much of a market left for non-compute intensive desktop apps? Or desktop apps that are a flagship product (slack client, zoom client, etc) but would you use a low code tool for that?

Re: Show HN: Retool Mobile

#84

Post by ohgodplsno »

shawiz wrote: post #51
blitz_skull wrote: post #45

I’m trying to understand, and forgive me, maybe the core Retool product explains this better—how is this different from something like Capacitor/Ionic or React Native?

Retool Mobile is built on top of React Native. We build a higher level of abstraction so you can build the UI / running queries much easier than building it from scratch, and still give you the option to write code and customize everything similar to building an app in React Native.

So what you're saying is that despite saying in your ad copy that you ship "native" apps, you ship the utter piece of crap that is React Native, and users will be faced with lists that stutter the moment there's more than twenty items in it because RecyclerViews are too complicated of a concept for RN.

Thanks for guaranteeing me consulting work on rewriting those apps in the near future I guess ?

Re: Show HN: Retool Mobile

#85

Post by seyz »

madarco wrote: post #7

I really love the breadth of Internal Admin tools that are available today, however, I feel like none has an even minimal support to proper dev flows like dev/staging/production or a way to synchronize releases between our own Backend API and the admin pages.

Disclaimer: I'm the founder of https://www.forestadmin.com.

I couldn't agree more with this statement. The issue isn't that internal tool builders lack a feature to do it, I think the problem is deeper and comes from the way they are designed.

Most of them allow you to build the frontend (web or mobile here) without providing any backend code. They provide you with an integration library, whether it's connecting to a third-party SaaS or to your backend code. But that's where it ends.

With Forest Admin, we have a completely different architecture. All the backend code is automatically generated with the UI, allowing you to be up and running in a few minutes.

This has allowed us to provide a rich development workflow environment both on the backend (the code is yours and runs on your own machine, so you can use your Git without changing your habits) and on the frontend. This gives you the ability to fork a branch from your production environment to a dev environment, make your changes, merge them on a staging before pushing to prod, etc.

This command line is heavily inspired by Git, allowing you to have a development workflow that works in sync between backend code and frontend layout, enabling collaboration with large development teams on an admin panel (+100 devs for our largest customer!).

Re: Show HN: Retool Mobile

#86

Post by yen789 »

AJRF wrote: post #57

Why do these things always fail? Is it because exec suite isn’t aware they exist? There are quite a few low/no code solutions now, but I can’t even recall using one of these, every serious company still seems to go native.

It used to be like that in the past, but now it's changing... For example Qonto, Spendesk - fintech unicorns, so rather serious companies - rely on Forest Admin. And if you talk to ops people using natively built internal tools, they typically complain about them a lot.

Re: Show HN: Retool Mobile

#87

Post by flakiness »

matlin wrote: post #5

I wonder how long before Apple blocks this. They seem to be pretty hostile to these types of apps and even limited Expo's ability to load projects on iOS if you weren't the direct developer[1]. Curious if Retool got explicit permission to do this. [1] https://blog.expo.dev/upcoming-limitations-to-ios-expo-clien...

> "Skip painful iOS and Android deployments. Ship to the App Store and Google Play Store, or as a PWA in seconds."

So it looks like this is mostly web-based and the app is just a wrapper. Then the app store ban isn't a big deal. They just use it through the Web (PWA).

Re: Show HN: Retool Mobile

#89

Post by cjonas »

shawiz wrote: post #69
manmal wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the sparse amount of native components that comes with them. Need a native map view, or maybe AR? Overlay them with your own custom markers? Go native or at least React Native. One single tiny component that‘s missing will force you back to native code. And do you really want to invest months of work before realizing that you need to reimplement everything?

We are working on custom components for Retool Mobile. With custom components, we hope to give folks the ability to paint whatever component they need on the Retool canvas but there will of course be scenarios where retool isn't the right choice. We also build escape hatches where you can write JavaScript anywhere in Retool. We like to think we can cover a very broad base, especially in the scenarios in which Retool…

Can you write well structured and reusuable code on retool? Can I write it in vscode, maybe even in typescript and deploy it up?

Most implementations of the "escape hatch" I've come across require scattering fragmented snippets across the project with no support for building out well structured and reusuable code.

Re: Show HN: Retool Mobile

#90

Post by kwhinnery »

cjonas wrote: post #59
AJRF wrote: post #57

Why do these things always fail? Is it because exec suite isn’t aware they exist? There are quite a few low/no code solutions now, but I can’t even recall using one of these, every serious company still seems to go native.

Because they are built and marketed to "non-developers", instead of for developers who just want to be more productive. They are always missing features that most devs would refuse to live without... Language features to support high reusability / modularity, robust dev tooling for navigating the software, support for proper a sdlc, etc...

It's true that a lot of adjacent tools in this space are built for non-developers. But if you try Retool, I think you'll notice that it's definitely not "no code" - any interesting application will require a significant amount of JavaScript to handle key interaction events and API/database integrations. The experience is closer to iterations of the Xcode Interface Builder where you'd visually design the UI/layout, then specify event handlers in Objective-C/Swift. It's much less code overall because you aren't doing boilerplate UI structure, styling, and low-level interaction event handling (focus and keyboard events, e.g.), but all the interesting stuff about your app still needs to happen in JavaScript.

Retool is still working out parts of the SDLC around modularity and the equivalent of a git flow for visual app development. Lots of energy going into this, would stay tuned for updates this year.

As you're grokking the mobile platform (or Retool generally) I think it's helpful to keep a couple things in mind.

- At least for now, Retool is designed and optimized for CRUD apps and operations software. On the mobile side, that will mean field workforce applications and mobile data entry stuff. If you need to provide a consumer-level user experience, building native (or React Native / Flutter at least) is probably your best bet.

- Consider solving problems with software on a spectrum from (approximately):

Spreadsheets > Airtable/Zapier > Retool > 100% custom UI (React & friends)

There is an appropriate time and place to deploy all these tactics. The sweet spot for Retool is for those use cases that can benefit from being codified in software (the flexibility of a more spreadsheet-y approach is detrimental/insufficient), but the business process is more important than granular control of the UI presentation. Instead of going full-on React, you can assemble a software-driven flow in Retool with about the effort it takes to assemble a non-trivial Keynote presentation (provided you know JavaScript - Retool is much harder if you are not a developer).

As always, there are trade-offs to consider when selecting the right tool for the job!

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