Why F.I.D. Studio is moving key SaaS products from web to native mobile apps using React Native and Expo, and what it means for users.
When you build a SaaS product as a web application, you get one enormous advantage: anyone with a browser can use it immediately. No app store review, no install friction, no platform-specific builds. But you also get one enormous limitation: you're running inside a browser tab, competing with every other browser tab for the user's attention, and you're limited by what the browser allows.
For many of our products, the web version is and will remain the right starting point. But for some, the next step is native — and we're making that move deliberately, not as a checkbox exercise.
Why Native Matters for Our Products
ChurchRide needs reliable background GPS tracking for drivers. Browsers throttle background location, and a driver navigating to a pickup can't risk their tracking stopping because they switched to Google Maps. Native apps solve this.
FrgeTrade needs to feel like a trading tool that's always one tap away. Traders check their bias, log trades, and review their journal throughout the day. A native app with biometric authentication and offline support transforms the experience from "I should check my journal" to "I already have."
Shift Flow needs reliable push notifications for shift reminders and kiosk-style sign-in on a fixed device. Native notifications are faster, more reliable, and work without the app being open.
ChurchNote is already live on the Google Play Store as a mobile-first experience — faith journaling happens in the moment, not at a desk.
Our Technology Choice: React Native and Expo
We've chosen React Native with Expo as our native development stack. Here's why:
One codebase, multiple platforms. React Native lets us write one application that runs on both Android and iOS, reducing development time and maintenance burden.
Expo for rapid iteration. Expo provides over-the-air updates, a managed build pipeline, and excellent developer tooling. We can push updates without going through app store review for most changes, which means faster bug fixes and feature delivery.
Shared architecture. We've structured our native projects as monorepos with shared packages for API clients, authentication, and theme tokens. This means our web and native products share the same backend, the same brand styling, and the same data models.
Familiar stack. React Native uses React, which our team already knows. NativeWind brings Tailwind CSS to React Native, so our design system carries over from web to mobile.
What This Means for Existing Users
We want to be clear: web versions of our products are not going away. The web platform remains available while native apps are built and tested. No user will lose access to their data or their workflow during the transition.
The native apps are additive — they give users who want a mobile-first experience a better option, without forcing anyone to switch before they're ready.
The Honest Reality
Native development takes time. There are app store guidelines to follow, testing requirements to meet, and platform-specific behaviours to handle. We're not promising overnight native apps for every product. We're building them carefully, testing them thoroughly, and releasing them when they're genuinely better than the web version — not just because native is the trend.
FrgeTrade's native app is being scaffolded with React Native and Expo. ChurchNote is already live on Android. ChurchRide and Shift Flow have native development on their roadmaps. We'll share updates as each one progresses.