I'm working on a thesis that requires me to build a mobile application from scratch. So far, I've only developed websites and haven't worked with mobile development before. The app will mainly involve taking and sharing photos, a home-screen widget, and group chat features—somewhat similar to a photo-sharing app. What technology and development path would be best for getting started?
2 Answers
Capacitor is another option if you want to reuse your web development skills. It packages a web app as a mobile application and provides plugins for features such as the camera. It may be a practical choice for a thesis prototype, although you should check early whether it supports the widget and other native features you need.
Since you already know web development, React Native with Expo could be a good starting point because the development style should feel relatively familiar. Begin with a small prototype: open the camera, take and save a photo, add authentication, and then build a basic group chat. Leave widgets and notifications until the core app is working, since those features tend to require more platform-specific knowledge. For the backend, services such as Firebase or Supabase can provide authentication, storage, databases, and real-time messaging without requiring you to build everything from scratch.
A web-based approach inside a mobile wrapper could work too, especially if the app isn’t very demanding. The main drawback is that camera access can be more awkward to implement and debug that way.