Mobile extension launch, or when solutions bring more problems

Okay, so we launched our hotel price comparison tool RatePunk at the beginning of this year. Although it received great feedback for its concept, it had this major drawback: it was for desktop use only. And travelers surely do not bring their computers with them when climbing the Alps. Most often, at least. Securing most of the bookings using their mobile devices, the limit of only being able to compare prices with a computer turned into a hassle for us.

All browser extensions on Safari now can be transferred to iPhones, and it has an enormously beneficial effect on hotel price comparison tool users. That’s precisely the reason why we just launched the mobile Safari version: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ratepunk/id1607823726.

Mobile extensions are the same browser extensions but adjusted to use on mobile devices and solve the main struggle extension developers & users face - the limitations of the desktop version only. In 2021, at the annual WWDC 2021 (Apple Worldwide Developers Conference), together with the iOS 15 operating system, Apple introduced its users to mobile extensions coming with it. Although it’s not the first company adapting extensions to mobile versions (Firefox & Kiwi had done it on Androids earlier), it definitely beat Google Chrome on this one.

However, we now face another problem (startup life in a nutshell): we can’t really overcome the apps (booking.com, Expedia, etc.) since they redirect the user straight to them & RatePunk cannot do the comparison on the app since it can only scan the website. We’re still looking for a way to get around it, we’ll see how it goes.

I understand there are quite a few parts that are not working 100% properly, but we’re trying to fix them all to get the best user experience at the end of the day. I would be thankful for any feedback - since this concept (mobile extensions) is not that popular yet, there aren’t many examples to rely on & any feedback will help to solve the user’s inconveniences.

Maybe anyone has a mobile extension version of your products? Would love to hear your experiences!

I'll keep you updated on the way, and share the lessons learned.