Rs · Field notes

Resources from the notebook.

Short, practical notes we would hand to any client. Free to read; no sign-up.

NoteR1

Native or cross-platform?

Choose native (Swift, Kotlin) when the product depends heavily on device hardware — camera pipelines, Bluetooth, background location, widgets — or when platform conventions are central to the experience. Choose cross-platform when the app is mostly forms, content and API calls and you want one team to maintain it. Either way, ask who will maintain it in three years and what skills they will have.

NoteR2

Five common reasons for review rejection

  1. Incomplete information: broken links, placeholder content or a missing demo account.
  2. Privacy disclosures that do not match actual data collection, including by SDKs.
  3. Accounts that can be created but not deleted from within the app.
  4. Permission prompts without a clear purpose string.
  5. Crashes on the reviewer's device or OS version.

Our Release Readiness Assay turns these into a checklist.

NoteR3

Accessibility basics in an afternoon

Turn on VoiceOver or TalkBack and try your main journey with the screen off. Increase text size to the largest setting. Check colour contrast of every text style. Make sure every tap target is at least 44 by 44 points. These four checks catch a large share of real problems.

NoteR4

What maintenance actually involves

Each year both Apple and Google release major OS versions and raise minimum SDK requirements for new submissions and updates. Third-party libraries publish security fixes. Certificates and push notification keys expire. A maintenance plan schedules this work instead of discovering it when an urgent fix is blocked.

CreditsR5

Image credits

Both photographs are illustrative stock images. They do not show AMA OS Labs staff, premises or client work.

ImageSource & licence
Mobile app interface design with map and social feedUnsplash source image · Unsplash Licence
Server rack in a data centre with network cablesPexels photo 6466141 · Pexels Licence