We know many of you have been eagerly waiting for a Coda Android app ever since we released an updated mobile experience, as well as an iOS apps for iPhone and Android, with the Coda 1.0 launch.
Today, the wait is over. Go grab the Coda Android app from Google Play, and read more about it in our blog post.
Never got around to sending back my feedback, and now it’s released faster than I anticipated.
As an Android developer myself, I find little pride in making apps that are nothing but mobile website wrappers (i.e., are simply WebView packaged in an app). It does not offer much beyond what a PWA (a pinned Chrome tab) does — the only addition is native system notifications.
From a mobile Coda app (and for the “doc as an app” rhetoric in general) I would at least expect full offline support, where a document could be cached once and used offline indefinitely.
I love Coda and honestly want it to become the next Excel for managing companies and personal endeavors, and the next Scratch for learning how to build apps. I hope this doesn’t come as an arrogant comment from a snooty fellow dev. It’s just that launching WebView-based apps nowadays are considered low-effort, and Coda definitely deserves better.
Sorry. I reckon there were some perfectly valid reasons to launch it as is.
Hi @Paul_Danyliuk, thanks for sharing your feedback and for your Coda enthusiasm!
We chose to invest in a mobile experience that feels as native as possible for all Coda users, including those who install apps as well as those who access Coda in a mobile browser. Many Coda users work in teams, and it’s important for docs to be fully accessible to anyone who opens a link, no install required. We also know many users value the convenience and additional functionality enabled by dedicated apps.
We chose to start with an approach that allowed us to offer a rich experience across platforms, for Coda makers and their teams.
Offline support is a great request, and feedback from the community is always helpful for us to prioritize additional improvements and new capabilities.
While I was testing the mobile beta version (Android), I loved it even more than the desktop version (When I interact with my doc as a User). Because of simplicity, minimalism and convenient navigation.
The layout of the app looks much more attractive than the layout of Present mode on the desktop.
The only thing that confuses me is the tables have to be scrolled to the right. But I have no idea how this could be avoided.
So, in addition to @Paul_Danyliuk comment I want to say that mobile app should give the user familiar experience based on their ecosystem. For us in Android there are widgets. It will be nice to have “quick add note” widget or even the widget with some action just like button in specific document. I can go further and tell about widgets with counter, list and other cool docs-based interactivity and selectors )
Rundown of my experience - please use purely to your benefit:
Downloaded app
Opened one of my docs, seems twice as fast to move around, this is good.
Local echo typing bug is back that was fixed in Mobile browser
The additional functionality I wanted was to add sections but this is unavailable
It became clear this app is a web wrapper within minutes
Opening the Brower session seems to default to the ‘one tab only’ view and is taken over by the app
Uninstalled app.
I am very bullish on Coda and eagerly awaiting the day much more desktop Functionality comes to mobile. Until then, I’m fine with mobile desktop view + a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse
I’ll start off saying I love coda, although I feel it’s lacking in places it is heading in the right direction.
However I must be the only one that hates the mobile version, it just looks a mess. It could be my Doc’s that are the issue but I can’t see how. The desktop version is clean, the mobile version feels like it’s just thowing all my information at me with no actual thought about usability, I’m not talking about just the app but viewing on a mobile browser.
Does anyone actually use there mobile to edit docs?
Does anyone have have a video of them using it on the mobile?
On the video I edit it (adding new values into the table) and use other controls (graphs, selectors, e.t.c.)
As a user of my doc, I fill in the data only through the app (because the phone is always at hand). Now I open the desktop only for doc’s administration (edit formulas, add new features).
I absolutely agree with @Denis_Peshekhonov regarding Android widgets. Coda has that brilliant piece of data pipelining which would be really advanced by using them.