Should an MVP work on all devices?
We're getting close to having an MVP ready to ship for our journaling app – Compound (www.compoundjournal.com). My question is, should we ensure that the app will run (size constraints) on as many device sizes as possible or test it on a few different mobile devices (Android & iOS) for the MVP?
We're getting right down to the finish line of our MVP scope, but I feel like there are a billion different android devices (sizes) and a handful of iOS devices (mobile app -- not iPad).
To what extent should the MVP be compatible with various screen sizes (devices)?
I built a cross-platform app a couple years ago so I can relate to your situation.
It's difficult because it's a "you're damned if you do and damned if you don't" scenario. Either you launch faster to a smaller audience, or you launch later to a wider audience.
In my situation, I launched to iOS first, followed by a web and android version ~6 months later. In hindsight, that was probably the right decision.
Yes – I got an annoying amount of requests for "when will this app come to android?", but it also let me build up an email "hype list" for that eventual android release.
Deploying to multiple app stores is a pain in the a**. You're gonna be moving fast early on and you'll want to deploy frequent updates so it will probably be worthwhile to focus on one app store for now.
Also, it's totally fine to focus primarily on phone screen sizes and add tablets later. Tablets make up a tiny portion of my app downloads. Probably around 2%. For an MVP, that's not worth thinking about.
Plus you can limit the app to only be downloadable on phone devices (not tablets) so just do that.
Either way, good luck! Sometimes the last 10% of app development is the hardest 10%, but just keep the scope small and get 'er across the finish line!
You are spot on. Im building the application with Flutter with the intention of releasing the first build for both iOS and Android, but it could take a significant amount of time just to account for all of the size variations on the android side alone!
I agree - tablets and/or web will likely be V1 ...maybe V2
Not at all. Choose the most important one. That's it.
Nice and concise!
I would add that it may also be good to make it clear to users which devices it is optimized for (via landing page screenshots or something)
Love that idea of having some transparency to potential users which devices the MVP is optimized for.
Short answer to your question: For God's sake, no!
You sometimes find people arguing that a feature does not work in the browser of Nintendo Switch or something like that.
We currently always make sure that it looks reasonable on an average laptop and is at least usable on smartphones and tablets. If the focus is on smartphones, we should of course approach it differently. But if someone notices that something breaks somewhere when a Poco F2 Pro (just picked any name) is used with Firefox, we don't drop everything. But I wouldn't ignore such tips either.
Maybe you should try to look further into your competitors?
There are services like SimiliarWeb etc. which give you an estimation about the the traffic from other sites/competitors.
For the very first version / MVP, focus on finding THE channel that users use the most.
Focus on growth, not that much about "details"...You have plenty of time for this later.
Thanks for this! I actually wasn't familiar with SimilarWeb.
IMO no. I'd focus on the main market share of what you think you're initial beta group looks like.
It depends?
Time it takes to cover the other screens. Devices your audience use. Circumstances your product is used in.
For crop.guide I decided to add dark mode and a basic mobile view because it would
Which was important because our product is used in our customers website, so has to fit in.
But only added it because it only took a couple hours, and didn’t impact the flexibility of our solution. If it had taken more time we would’ve probably waited.
For an app, I’d go with the app first so you know if people are happy with the functionality offered. It’s painful to invest in multiple screen sizes and marketplaces to then discover your users want something else.
So bottom line. Can you test the viability with the current product? Will adding screen sizes make it more difficult to pivot? How fast can you add the sizes if needed?