Mobile app examples for small businesses, by use

What makes an app worth installing

Apple rejects apps that only repeat a website, and customers delete them. Each app here does something a bookmark cannot: a salon takes booking requests in a native form, a pasta bar takes pickup orders with a server priced cart and Stripe Checkout, a yoga studio reads its timetable from a collection the owner updates, and a homewares shop sells its catalog with a cart badge on the tab bar.

How these apps are made

A native app starts from a Code mode site on a paid plan. The AI writes an Expo app with Expo Router tabs, Uniwind styling and react-native-reusables components, reads the site's store and data collections through the site kit, and checks every tab at phone and tablet widths and in dark mode before the preview is shown. You change it through the AI chat.

Getting into the stores

You build and submit the app yourself with EAS on your own Apple and Google accounts; OneCraft never submits for you. Apple charges 99 USD a year, Google 25 USD once, and a new personal Google account needs 12 testers for 14 days.

Keeping the app and the site in step

The apps read the same store and collections as the site they belong to. A price changed in the store admin, a class added in the Data tab or a dish archived shows in both the website and the app without a new build or a new store submission. Only changes to the app's design or screens go through the AI chat, a fresh export and an update in the stores.

Every page in this collection

• Online store app example for a small homewares shop

  A small shop's best customers buy again, and an app on their home screen brings them back without an ad. This example for an invented Fremantle homewares store shows new products on the home screen, the full shop by collection, a cart priced by the server and the shop's hours.

• Restaurant ordering app example for pickup orders

  A pickup ordering app pays for itself when regulars reorder from their phone instead of a delivery platform. This example for an invented Leichhardt pasta bar reads its menu from the restaurant's store, adds dishes to an order priced by the server, and shows where to collect.

• Salon booking app example with services and booking requests

  A salon's regulars rebook every six weeks, and an app on their phone makes that a one minute job. This example for an invented Subiaco salon has four tabs: a home screen with the most booked services, the full price list, a booking request form and the studio details.

• Yoga studio app example with a live timetable

  Students check a studio's timetable more than anything else, often in the morning before class. This example for an invented Bulimba studio reads the week's classes from a collection the owner edits, groups them by day with the time, teacher and level, and takes booking requests.