We are proud to announce the first iOS app developed completely in-house at 37signals: the official Basecamp app for iPhone.
Get it now for free on the App Store.
Here’s what you can do with it:
- Check in on your projects from anywhere. Basecamp for iPhone shows you the latest news on each project.
- Jump in on a discussion and post your thoughts.
- View progress as team members complete to-dos and upload files.
- Look up anything in a project. Refer to a document or make a decision no matter where you are.
We discovered it’s very important on the phone to make sharp priorities early in the design.
Our top priority was fast access to news. You’ll find the app makes it addictive to check in and feel the pulse of your projects throughout the day. You can quickly bounce in and out of projects. Project screens on the phone show the latest news first rather than static project contents.
Our second priority was to offer the full depth of Basecamp. After you dip into a project, you can go deeper and browse its contents. A menu offers all the project sections like Discussions, To-dos, Files, and Documents.
Iterating on iOS is tricky. The medium isn’t as flexible as HTML and CSS. To cut this down we used a hybrid approach. The page stacking behavior and navigation menus are native, while the rest of the screens are web views. Prototyping on Paper came in handy for evaluating native design ideas before committing to code.
We also used some shiny new tech. The app is built in RubyMotion. We barely touched Xcode. Look forward to some posts from Nick for details on that.
We’ve been using the app constantly since we first had a prototype in our hands. I’m thrilled to share it with you today. It’s available now for free in the App Store.
- NOTE: Basecamp for iPhone requires an account on the new Basecamp (released March 2012). Basecamp Classic is not supported.
Daniel
on 12 Feb 13Nice work! Too bad it’s only compatible with iOS 6. People with older iPhone and iPod touch models won’t be able to try it. RubyMotion is an interesting choice, I’m looking forward to hear more on the iteration process and how it differs from building a web app.
Paul
on 12 Feb 13Go RubyMotion! Was there specific functionality that forced you to use XCode?
Chris
on 12 Feb 13I’m interested in why you decided to release an iOS app for Basecamp. I remember last year 37 wrote an article talking about making it work on mobile devices rather than creating a new app that did the same thing (Basecamp Classic Mobile), I realize that was for classic but I’m still interested in the decision process.
What made you change your mind and not take the same path with Basecamp NEXT?
Thanks, Chris
Ryan
on 12 Feb 13“What made you change your mind [about building a native app]”
Our gold standard for the user experience is always rising. Every day we have to ask ourselves again: what’s the best way to accomplish our vision for the app? We would have built a web-app again if that was adequate, but I think we were able to hit a higher mark with a native wrapper. Especially on basics like keeping you logged in and navigating with the page stacker.
Nick
on 12 Feb 13Daniel: Given how well the iOS6 adoption rate is, we decided to stick with it. We started the app development pretty much as iOS6 came out and made that decision early.
Paul: We didn’t use Xcode for any coding of the app, or Interface Builder at all. The Xcode organizer is essential for debugging and for documentation, though. I’ll be writing more about this soon!
Chris
on 12 Feb 13@Ryan. Thanks you for the response, I’m looking forward to your article on Xcode and iOS development.
Thomas Schranz
on 12 Feb 13Congratulations on shipping the new iOs app. Intriguing hybrid approach to get the best of both worlds :)
Can’t wait for more behind the scenes posts re design process and thinking behind the app.
Ishan
on 12 Feb 13I’m a BaseCamp user and like the app. Just one question, when is iPad version coming?
Any plans?
Daniel
on 12 Feb 13@Nick thanks for your answer. I’m sure the iOS 6 adoption rate is high on devices where you are able to install it, but since Apple decided that some devices could not get iOS 6 at all (namely iPad 1, iPod touch 3rd gen and older and iPhone 3g and older), although there’s a significant number of these that are still in use, I was wondering if your choice was motivated by something else (like using features that are only available on iOS 6).
Uzo
on 12 Feb 13Hopefully Android will get this sort of love from 37s some day …
Emil
on 12 Feb 13Wow. I’m impressed. The leap from the non-working/laggy Highrise app to this is huge. This thing is fast. Good work guys!
John Topley
on 12 Feb 13I’m sure the app is up to the standards we’ve come to expect from 37signals. However, knowing how you sweat the details, I feel obliged to point out that you’re violating Apple’s App Store Marketing and Advertising Guidelines for Developers. You should be using the Download on the App Store badge in this blog post. The Available on the App Store badge is for non-electronic media.
Rhys
on 12 Feb 13I’m kind if disappointed that this appears to simply be the mobile site with some extra afford annex made for the iPhone. A fully native app could’ve offered a lot of useful features, most notably offline support. Is there any reason you chose to build on top of the mobile site rather than going fully native?
Ryan
on 12 Feb 13Thanks John. Updated the button.
Rhys
on 12 Feb 13‘afford annex’ there should read ‘affordances’
Ryan
on 12 Feb 13Rhys – Offline support isn’t a priority right now. When you take that off the table it tips the trade-offs heavily in favor of web views.
Martin
on 13 Feb 13Not to be ungrateful, this app is beautiful; but do you have any plans for an iPad app?
Rhys
on 13 Feb 13Ryan – I’m interested as to why you so adamantly believe web views to be a superior technology. As a user, they feel unresponsive, as an iOS developer, they feel inelegant and poorly suited to the task. Is it simply due to the fact that the 37Signals team consists largely of web developers and the desire to leverage that knowledge?
Ryan
on 13 Feb 13Rhys – web views aren’t inherently superior. They have different trade-offs. We liked the trade-offs for this cut of the app. I gave a run-down of them here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5207681
Tom
on 13 Feb 13Nice work. I was wondering why there is no “my todos” view? Isn’t that super essential, to know what I have to get done today or next week and so forth? Right now I have to go through the long list of my projects to search for my todos that are due today. Or do I miss something here?
Rhys
on 13 Feb 13Ryan – Those definitely sound like sensible tradeoffs for this particular app. I’ve been working on making document-style layouts easier on the iPhone with one of my new projects recently. Hopefully I’ll be able to release my flow layout code as an open source project once it’s done.
Sean
on 13 Feb 13Wow. No Love for Android? awww.
JeffreyR
on 13 Feb 13Classic user wishing for some love too…
Ryan
on 13 Feb 13Thanks Tom. I hear you on “my todos.” We didn’t get there for v1.
Dan
on 13 Feb 13I hope this doesn’t mean you will stop optimizing the web app for mobile view. Doing so works for ALL mobile devises. All the hard work you put into this IOS6 app is only good for a small percentage of overall mobile users. I feel the time you put into it waisted, especially considering you probably won’t go make an android version of it. Are you an all apple company? Apple fan boys?
Jason Fried
on 13 Feb 13Dan: No way. The mobile web views power many of the layouts in the iPhone app. The same thing will be true for the Android app.
Forrest
on 13 Feb 13I’m very interested in the Apple approval process for a hybrid app like this. I’ve been considering building with a similar stack, but heard negative stories. Apparently, all the business logic had to be in the native application.
Did you experience any pushback or problems? Any tips for navigating the guidelines when submitting this style of application? Thanks
Nick
on 13 Feb 13Forrest: We luckily have had no pushbacks or problems from Apple (yet). We went over the App Store’s review guidelines throughout our final sprint to launch the app and made sure we weren’t violating any rules.
This discussion is closed.