Mobile app development on your platform's API
Plan and build a customer or field mobile app on an existing platform's API: an audit of what the API already supports, screens, sign-in, notifications, offline behaviour, store release preparation and phased delivery, so the app reaches a working first release without rebuilding the API from scratch.
Submit a project See the mobile commerce app solutionReviewed by David Nguyen (CEO) · Updated 5 Oct 2026
What's included
OutsourcingVN is operated by Netbase JSC, and this page describes Netbase's own mobile app service: a customer or field app built against a platform's existing API, scoped so the app and the API gaps it surfaces are planned together rather than discovered mid-build.
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API audit
Confirm what the existing platform's API already supports, and list every gap against the screens the app needs.
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Screens and sign-in
The core screens a first release needs, with social or standard sign-in and token refresh.
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Notifications
Push notifications for the events that matter, with an in-app panel as the fallback where push infrastructure is not yet built.
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Offline behaviour
What the app shows and allows when the connection drops, defined rather than left to the platform default.
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Store release preparation
The assets, listing content and review requirements a release to an app store needs.
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Phased delivery
A first release covering the core path, with later phases adding features once that path is proven.
Every Netbase offer, including this one, is listed on the services hub.
Is this the right project for your app?
Good fit
- An existing platform or backend already has, or can grow, an API the app can call
- The app is a customer or field companion to a store, marketplace or operational system you already run
- Sign-in, notifications and offline behaviour can be scoped against a real API, not a mockup
- A phased release, starting with a defined core path, fits the timeline
Another route fits better
- There is no backend yet at all — custom product engineering builds that first
- The underlying commerce store itself still needs building or replatforming — see e-commerce development
- A chat-based channel would reach users faster than a native app for a first release — see the WhatsApp AI chatbot record
- The requirement is a single bounded technical mission with a fixed deliverable, not an app
Why the API audit comes first
A mobile screen is only as good as the data behind it. When screens get designed before anyone has read the API, the same problems surface every time: a field the screen needs has no endpoint, a status change can only be polled rather than pushed, or the only checkout or submission path assumes a browser the app cannot embed cleanly. Running the audit as its own first milestone keeps those problems out of the sprint where fixing them costs the most, and turns each gap into scoped work in the plan rather than a mid-build surprise.
Delivery modules
Endpoints, authentication, pagination and event support checked against the screens the app needs.
Social and standard sign-in, with tokens the app can refresh without forcing a repeated login.
Push notifications for the events that matter, an in-app panel, and status tracking where the API supports it.
Defined read and write behaviour while the connection is down, reconciled once it returns.
Listing assets, review requirements and the submission itself for each app store targeted.
For custom development, the client owns the IP created for it; Netbase's own productized modules, where a build reuses them, are licensed rather than transferred.
How the project runs
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Audit the API
Confirm what the platform's API already supports, and list every gap against the screens, sign-in and notification events the app needs.
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Design the core screens
Sign-in, the primary browse or work view, and the action the app exists to support, scoped for the first release.
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Build sign-in, notifications and offline behaviour
Each is built against the audited API, with gaps closed as their own scoped work rather than assumed away.
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Prepare the store release, and launch in phases
Listing assets and review requirements are prepared alongside the build, the first release ships, and later phases add what the core path proved was needed.
Where this differs from a shopping app on a commerce API
Mobile commerce apps plans one specific workflow: a customer shopping app built on a store or marketplace API, with its own catalogue, cart and checkout screens. This page is the general mobile app offer for any platform's API — a field app for a logistics or service business, a companion app for a SaaS product, or a shopping app when that is the workflow in question. Where the API itself is being built or extended alongside the app, it is commonly a Laravel backend, and when the underlying platform is an online store, the choice between a coupled storefront and an API-first architecture is covered on headless vs traditional e-commerce.
Where AI and alternative channels fit
A chat-based channel, such as WhatsApp, often reaches users faster than a native app for a first release, since there is no store review and no install step; Netbase has built a WhatsApp AI chatbot with CRM integration for lead capture, customer data and workflow automation, with an LLM API in the stack. A speech interface is a further alternative or companion channel for some workflows; the speech interface project guide scopes that route. Inside a native app, the clearest AI wins are a support assistant that answers order or status questions before a ticket opens, and search or recommendation logic layered onto the API's own data.
What Netbase has already delivered
For RB Marketplace, the customer shopping app was built directly on the marketplace's own Laravel API rather than a separate backend, reaching 45 or more screens by handover across six phases that opened with the API audit itself; sign-in through Google, Facebook and Apple, push notifications and a secure checkout view were part of that scope, with Android shipped and iOS in the extended scope. The engagement's full detail is on the RB Marketplace mobile app record.
Separately, for a Dubai-based loyalty and rewards technology company that is not named, the client-side pieces were delivered as mobile SDK interface components wired into a headless, multi-store reward-shop platform; see the loyalty reward shop record for that engagement.
Netbase delivered a headless multi-store reward shop platform for a Dubai-based loyalty and rewards technology company.
Keep Reading
For RB Marketplace, Netbase built an English-first multi-vendor marketplace for West Africa on Laravel, then built the customer shopping app on that marketplace's own API.
Keep ReadingWhich questions should you ask a mobile app vendor?
- What does the API audit cover, and who signs off the gap list before screen design starts?
- Which platforms ship in the first release, and which are an extended scope?
- How is offline behaviour defined for this app, not left to a default?
- What does store release preparation include, and who owns the submission?
- Who owns the code once the app ships?
What goes wrong in a mobile app build?
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Screens designed before the API audit
A missing endpoint found after screens are built costs more to add than one found during the audit.
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Push notifications treated as an afterthought
The events that trigger them need designing with the API, not bolted on after the app is otherwise done.
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A first release scoped too wide
Shipping every feature before sign-in, the core screens and notifications are proven delays the release that actually matters.
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Store listing left to the end
App-store review and listing are a separate workstream with their own timeline, not a same-day task.
Frequently asked questions
Netbase builds the customer app on Android, with iOS in the extended scope; your proposal states which platforms are in the first release.
The audit flags the gap, and closing it, typically adding an endpoint or a webhook, becomes its own scoped piece of work rather than a surprise mid-build.
This service builds the app against an existing or growing API; if there is no backend at all yet, custom product engineering scopes that first.
Sometimes. A WhatsApp-based channel avoids app-store review entirely and can reach users faster for a first release; it suits some workflows better than a native app and worse than others.
The length and coverage are agreed in the proposal and vary by project, scoped as its own line item rather than assumed.
You do, for the custom development created for you. Any licensed Netbase component is identified in the proposal before you accept it.
Ready to scope your app?
Bring the platform or backend your app will call, the core screens you consider essential, and the platforms you need for a first release. Submit a project and a person will reply with the fit and what the API audit would check first. OutsourcingVN is Netbase's own outsourcing-services platform.