Native Android apps that use the camera and keep working offline
A real app that installs on a phone, opens the camera, and keeps working when the signal drops. Not a website wrapped up to look like an app.
This is for you if any of this sounds familiar
Your people work away from a desk
Drivers, technicians on site, sales staff out in the regions. They will hit places with no signal. A native app keeps working there and sends the data up once the phone reconnects.
The camera does real work
Scanning barcodes, photographing documents, reading receipts. A native app opens the camera faster and reads more reliably than anything running inside a browser.
You want an icon on their home screen
An icon on the phone gets tapped far more often than a link someone has to open a browser and type an address for.
You need notifications people actually see
App notifications land on the lock screen. Email and chat messages get buried under everything else that arrived that day.
Three packages. Pick the one that matches what you actually need
These are full project prices, not starting points that grow later. If anything falls outside the scope, I tell you the number before I start on it.
- Native Kotlin, not a website wrapped to look like an app
- An icon on the home screen, opened without a browser
- Up to five main screens, named in the specification on day one
- Signs in with your own staff accounts
- Install file tested on real hardware, with the full source code
- English README and contract, sixty days of cover after handover
- Keeps recording with no signal, uploads by itself when it returns
- Camera inside the app for evidence photos and barcodes
- Notifications on the lock screen, not email nobody opens
- Up to ten screens with access levels per user
- The rule for clashing edits agreed before a line is written
- Reads text from images on the phone, no image ever leaves it
- Maps and location, recorded only while a job is running
- Web admin console for everything the app sends in
- Plans each engineer’s run from where they actually are
- Every file and document prepared for the Play Store
- Replies within contracted hours, counted in your time zone
How it works, from first message to launch
Tell me who uses it and where
Staff or customers, inside one building or out on the road. Those two answers change how the whole thing gets built, so they come first.
You get the scope and one price in writing
Scope, price, and what I need from you, in one English document. The price moves on four things: how many screens, whether it has to run with no signal, how much work the camera does, and whether you need a web console. Nothing gets added on later.
You try the real app partway through
I send install files while the work is going, so you are holding the app on a phone long before the end date, not waiting to see it at handover.
Handover and store preparation
Source code, install file, English manual and technical doc, and the files for a Play Store submission. Then 60 days of support.
Questions people ask about this service
Why not build a website instead? It would be cheaper.
If your work does not lean on the camera and does not have to run without a connection, I will tell you to build a website. It costs less and it is easier to change later. I say that during scoping. I do not push an app because an app bills more.
Can you do iOS as well?
No. Building for iOS needs a Mac and I do not have one. That is a tool limit, not a skill one, and I am saying it here so it does not come up at the end of a conversation. If you need both platforms, hire someone separately for iOS.
Whose name is the app published under?
Yours. Open the Google Play developer account in your company name from the start. Then the app is your property and you can change who maintains it whenever you want, including replacing me.
Where do the camera images go?
In Scan, images are read on the phone and no picture leaves the device, which suits confidential paperwork. In the other two packages, photos go to your own server over an encrypted connection. Never to mine.
Is there real work I can look at?
ReceiptLens. A native Android app I wrote in Kotlin that reads receipts with the camera and does the processing on the phone. The code is public on GitHub and it is on the portfolio page.
What decides which package I need?
Four things: how many screens, whether it has to keep working with no signal, how much work the camera does, and whether you need a web console. A five-screen app reading from your server, and an app that runs offline, reads documents on the phone and feeds a console, are not close in size. The three prices above are fixed, and the scope behind each one is written down before anything starts, so nothing gets added on later.
Often booked together
Tell me who uses the app and where
Tell me who uses it, where they use it, and whether they lose signal out there.
If a website would do the job better and cost you less, I will say so instead of selling you an app.
I reply inside one business day, counted in your time zone. I work alone, so you talk to the person writing the code. No call needed.