Mobile Apps That Actually Ship
We build iOS and Android apps that survive App Store review, run on the five-year-old phone your user actually owns, handle the subway tunnel, and don't die the first time a push notification goes out to 50,000 people. Native where it matters, cross-platform where it doesn't, and shipped by engineers who've been through App Store rejections before.
You don't need another prototype.
You need an app that passes review.
Most mobile projects don't die in development. They die on submission day, or a week after launch when the 1-star reviews start rolling in because nobody tested on an iPhone SE. We build for the messy reality of the mobile ecosystem: ten years of OS versions, flaky networks, App Store reviewers having a bad day, and the 3AM push notification bug that takes the backend down.
Submitted four times, rejected four times
Guideline 4.3 (spam). 5.1.1 (privacy). 2.1 (performance). Every rejection is a two-week round trip and your launch date slips again. Nobody on the team has shipped an app before and it shows.
Works on the latest iPhone, breaks on everything else
The designer has an iPhone 15 Pro. The developer too. Meanwhile 40% of your users are on a 3-year-old Android with 3GB RAM, and the app is a slideshow for them.
Push notifications are a black box
Deep links don't route, silent pushes never arrive, token refresh quietly breaks, APNs and FCM behave differently, and nobody can tell you why delivery rates dropped 30% this week.
What You Actually Get
No vague deliverables. Here's exactly what lands in your hands.
A signed build in both stores
TestFlight, Play Internal Track, production release. Code-signing set up in your org, not ours. Store listings, screenshots, privacy manifests, ATT prompts — all handled.
A real device test matrix
We test on actual phones: old Androids, small iPhones, tablets, foldables. You get a device coverage report with every release, not "works on my simulator".
Crash and performance monitoring
Sentry or Firebase Crashlytics wired in from day one. Cold start budget, memory budget, ANR tracking, crash-free session targets — numbers on a dashboard, not vibes.
Source code and signing keys, in your name
Your Apple Developer account, your Play Console, your keychain. Your GitHub repo. If we walked away tomorrow, your next team could ship an update on Monday.
A Real Mobile Engineering Team
Shipping a mobile app well takes more than one full-stack developer pretending. Six roles you get on every Pillai Infotech mobile build.
Senior iOS Engineer
Swift, SwiftUI, UIKit interop, StoreKit 2, background tasks, WidgetKit. Has read the Human Interface Guidelines cover to cover and argues with reviewers for a living.
Senior Android Engineer
Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, WorkManager, Play Billing, scoped storage. Knows what breaks on OEM skins (Xiaomi, Samsung, Oppo) and designs around it.
Mobile QA with a Device Lab
Physical iPhones from SE to 16 Pro Max, Android devices from Pixel to $150 entry-level. Runs regression on every build. Catches the bugs simulators hide.
App Store Launch Lead
Walks your submission through the first review, handles rejections, manages phased rollouts, staged releases, emergency pulls, and expedited reviews when something goes wrong.
Performance & Offline Architect
Sets the cold start, jank, memory and battery budgets. Designs offline-first sync, conflict resolution, background refresh. The engineer who cares when your app eats 8% of a battery per hour.
Privacy & Compliance Lead
App Tracking Transparency, privacy manifests, SDK audits, GDPR / DPDP / COPPA, data safety forms. Files the paperwork so Apple and Google don't hold you up.
You See Everything. In Real Time.
Every Pillai Infotech project comes with a dedicated client dashboard. Kanban boards, live logs, test results, meeting notes — it's all visible the moment it happens. No status-report theatre, no "we'll get back to you", no surprises at the demo. You work with us like you work with your own team.
Kanban Board, Live
Every epic, every story, every task — visible on your dashboard. Drag, comment, reprioritize. It's the same board our team works from.
Documented Everything
Every decision, spec, API contract, and architecture diagram lives in the dashboard. Searchable, versioned, linked to the tasks they shaped.
Live Logs & Test Results
Build logs, deployment logs, test suite results — streamed to your dashboard the moment they run. You never have to ask "did the build pass?"
Meetings → Tasks, Automatically
Every meeting is recorded, transcribed, and every action point is auto-converted into a tracked task assigned to the right person. Nothing gets lost between calls.
Sprint Burndown & Velocity
See exactly how much work is done, how much remains, and our velocity over time. If a sprint is slipping, you see it the same moment we do.
Comment, Approve, Decide — In-Place
Comment on any task, approve designs, sign off on specs, and raise blockers directly in the dashboard. Everything tied to the work, not buried in email threads.
Mobile Apps We Know How to Ship
We pick the architecture to match the app, not the other way round.
📲 Consumer apps at scale
Social, lifestyle, content, on-demand. Built for the hockey-stick moment: CDN-backed media, feed pagination, push at scale, in-app purchases, referral loops.
🔧 B2B field & ops apps
Inspections, logistics, warehouse, field service. Offline-first by design, barcode and NFC, camera + signature capture, background sync when the van gets signal.
💳 Fintech & wallet apps
KYC flows, biometric auth, secure enclave key storage, certificate pinning, PCI-aware UX, regulator-grade audit trails. We've been through RBI and PCI reviews.
🏥 Healthcare & HIPAA apps
PHI handling, HealthKit / Health Connect, telehealth video, prescription flows, consent capture. BAA-ready infrastructure, audit logs, and the paper trail to prove it.
🛒 Marketplaces & two-sided apps
Buyer and seller apps that share a backend, in-app chat, reviews, payments, escrow, dispute flows. One codebase, two product experiences, zero schema drift.
🧩 Super-apps & mini-app hosts
Hosting embedded mini-apps or micro-frontends inside a shell app — sandboxed, versioned, remotely configured. For brands consolidating five apps into one.
The Mobile Stack We Use
Native when it wins, cross-platform when it wins. We pick the boring tool when it's the right one.
iOS Native
Android Native
Cross-Platform
Backend & Delivery
A Six-Stage Mobile Delivery Process
Built around the reality that the App Store, not the backlog, sets your release cadence.
Discovery & Platform Call
Who are your users, what phones do they actually own, iOS-first or Android-first, native or cross-platform. We get this decided in week one, in writing, with trade-offs explained.
UX & Device-Aware Design
Figma prototypes designed for real screen sizes, tested on the small iPhone and the big Android before a line of code. Dark mode, dynamic type, RTL, accessibility baked in.
Build in Vertical Slices
One end-to-end feature shipped to TestFlight / Internal Track every two weeks. Real devices, real backend, real auth. No big-bang reveal at the end.
Device-Matrix QA
Every release goes through the device lab: old and new, iOS and Android, tablets, foldables. Performance budgets enforced. No regressions ship.
Store Submission & Launch
Privacy manifests, ATT prompts, data safety forms, screenshots, store listings, review notes. We walk the first submission through and handle any rejections.
Post-Launch Monitoring
Crash-free rate, ANRs, cold start, battery, network error rates. Weekly review for the first 90 days. Hotfix process ready on day one, not invented during the outage.
Three Ways to Engage
Mobile projects don't fit one shape. Pick the one that matches your stage.
Mobile Scoping Sprint
Two-week engagement to decide native vs cross-platform, nail the architecture, and produce a real quote and timeline you can take to the board.
- Platform + architecture decision
- Clickable prototype on real devices
- Honest build estimate in writing
Fixed-Scope Mobile Build
End-to-end app delivery from Figma to the App Store, with backend integration, analytics, and post-launch warranty.
- Fixed scope, fixed price
- Typical: 10–20 weeks
- 60-day post-launch warranty
Embedded Mobile Squad
A dedicated iOS + Android + QA squad working alongside your team on a continuous release cycle.
- iOS + Android + QA + PM
- Monthly retainer, scale up/down
- Best for: ongoing product roadmap
Honest Answers to Mobile Reality Questions
The questions every smart buyer asks before signing. Here's what we tell them.
Native or React Native / Flutter?
Depends on the app. Heavy graphics, deep OS integration, or best-in-class polish — native wins. Content-forward apps where iOS and Android should feel the same and you want one team — React Native or Flutter wins. We benchmark both for your use case before recommending, and we'll tell you if cross-platform is the wrong call.
How long does App Store review actually take?
Apple: 24–48 hours for the review itself, but expect 1–2 rejections on a first submission if nobody on your team has shipped before. Google: usually under 24 hours, stricter on policy than on UX. We budget two weeks of calendar time between "code complete" and "live in the store", and we've hit zero rejected submissions across our last 18 launches.
Who owns the source code and the signing keys?
You do. Code in your GitHub org. Apple Developer account in your company name. Google Play Console in your name. Signing keys in your keychain, backed up on your side. If we disappeared tomorrow, your next developer could ship an update on Monday without a forensic audit.
Do we need an App Clip or Instant App?
Usually no. They matter for specific flows — tap-to-pay, parking meters, onboarding without install. Most apps get more value from a good web landing page and a one-tap install. We'll tell you honestly whether your use case justifies the extra build.
How do you handle offline mode and sync?
Offline-first where the product needs it: local database (SQLite / Room / Core Data), write-ahead queue, conflict resolution policy decided up front (last-write-wins, CRDTs, or server-arbitrated). We design the sync model in week two, not after the first field complaint.
What about the old iPhones and cheap Androids?
We set a minimum supported OS version and a minimum device tier on day one, based on your actual user analytics if you have them. Performance budgets are enforced against the slowest device in that tier — not the flagship the designer uses. It's the difference between a 4.7-star app and a 3.2-star one.
Push notifications — why are they so hard?
Because APNs and FCM behave differently, silent pushes are rate-limited, token refresh is fragile, and deep linking routes through a different code path than in-app navigation. We build a single notification abstraction, test delivery end-to-end in staging, and wire up delivery-rate monitoring. You'll know within an hour if something breaks.
Can you integrate with our existing backend?
Yes — that's most mobile projects. REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSockets, whatever you have. If the backend needs mobile-specific endpoints (pagination, delta sync, thin responses), we'll build those too or work with your backend team to ship them.
What happens if Apple or Google changes the rules?
They will. ATT, privacy manifests, data safety, target SDK bumps, billing policy — the ground moves every year. Our retainer clients get ecosystem-change patches rolled in automatically. Fixed-scope clients get a heads-up and a quote to address whatever's coming.
Can you sign an NDA before we share details?
Always. NDA before the first call. Source and design assets stay under your control. We're happy to work inside your tooling if that's what compliance requires.