Native or cross-platform? MySQL or PostgreSQL? Building an app is paralyzing—too many choices 😵💫 Even with the popular options, you still have to find the right permutation.
Opinionated Launch has everything you need to build, launch and maintain a production-grade mobile app.
Everything starts with an idea that you need to validate, followed by actually building it and then launching it 🚀 Once the app is released, you need to keep adding features while ensuring that it’s running smoothly.
This book provides an opinionated approach to going through each phase, focusing on the tech side of things.
Have experience building an app? Check out some of these fun facts from the book to see if the book will still be useful for you (remember, there’s also the backend and the admin portal):
How to share codebase between Android and iOS. And, no, it’s not by bundling HTML pages and publishing it as an app.
How to set up automation so that when you push the code, everyone will have the latest version on their phone in less than an hour.
How to add HD animations that don’t take up much space and can be made interactive. Definitely not by embedding a GIF or movie file, or coding it by hand.
How to force your users to upgrade to the latest version of your app. Nicely.
How your mobile app can use the backend running on your laptop so you can easily test and tweak.
How to have both live and test versions of the app on the same phone, but with different names and icons to tell them apart.
How to distribute your app for testing without sharing APK in WhatsApp groups. If you’re still doing that, please stop. It’s a security risk.
How to design an icon for your app that looks great everywhere. In case you haven’t noticed, app icons in Android are not necessarily square. Or circle.
Talk about icons… How to create favicons for your website that look great on all devices.
How to create great-looking screenshots for your store page on a budget.
How to gradually roll out a feature to select users based on country, age group, or other criteria.
Hi! 👋 My name is Thomas Wiradikusuma. I’m a software developer turned startup founder turned corporate exec (but still code, hence this book). I’ve worked with a Global 500 company and held senior leadership roles in a major carrier/telco and a large retail conglomerate in Indonesia.
I’m currently a CTO for a venture-backed fintech. Let’s connect on LinkedIn.
Building mobile apps these days is, ironically, both easier and harder at the same time. Mature tooling, rich ecosystems, and the proliferation of choice make it easier to get started and do more things with less effort.
Unfortunately, with maturity, there are now five ways to send push notifications to your phone, and most of them are outdated 🫠 Choice can also be dangerous—you might end up betting on a dying horse.
This book aims to be the Bootstrap of mobile app building. Your app won’t be Google-scale automatically, but you will get the basics right 😎
Specifically, you will learn:
What needs to be considered when developing an app, and how each component work together.
Development of the mobile app and its supporting systems (backend and admin portal).
Deployment and monitoring (OpenTelemetry). Infra stuff to support development, such as CI/CD, is also discussed.
Security is a broad topic; this chapter will take you through the standard security best practices.
A successful app will have a “support ecosystem” such as a landing page, social media, and analytics.
Before an app can go live, it needs to tick all boxes. We’ll cover UAT, penetration testing, and ISO 27001.
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In both of these areas, small mistakes can be very costly.
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The budget option (but still great!).
The book is where I spent the most time and effort. The tutorials and starter code are very useful, but let’s not overlook the book itself. You will be referring back to the best practices in this book from time to time.
So, if a budget is an issue, I highly recommend getting the book by itself. You won’t regret it.