https://tradeyoke.net/blog/tag/mobile The native apps: offline-first, on the van, in your pocket. en-gb https://tradeyoke.net/blog/why-offline-first-matters-for-trades https://tradeyoke.net/blog/why-offline-first-matters-for-trades Tue, 18 Aug 2026 21:15:11 GMT Every field app claims to 'work on mobile'. Very few keep working when the signal drops behind a house, in a basement or halfway up a valley. Here's why we built TradeYoke the other way round. Carl Randall Product Mobile https://tradeyoke.net/blog/offline-first-why-it-matters https://tradeyoke.net/blog/offline-first-why-it-matters Thu, 21 May 2026 08:15:11 GMT Signal drops in basements, plant rooms and country lanes. An app that keeps working there, and syncs honestly when the signal returns, is the one you'll actually use. Offline is not a mode. It is the ordinary condition of a working day, and the app should be built for the ordinary condition. — TradeYoke ### Why the web app is different, and why we say so TradeYoke runs on web, iOS, Android and Windows from one codebase. The installed apps, on the phone and on a Windows laptop, are offline-first in the sense above: local store, queued changes, sync with conflict rules. The web app in a browser is the always-online office front door. It is where the office plans the week, sends the invoices and reads the reports, and it assumes a connection. We say that plainly because "works offline" on a website usually means very little, and because the split is deliberate. The phone is where the signal drops, so the phone is where offline lives. The platform page sets out what each surface does. > ✅ Offline mobile is included in every TradeYoke plan, including Free. It is not an add-on, because a phone app that stops in a basement is not a phone app. ### What it looks like on a wet Tuesday A window cleaner working a rural round loses signal at the third stop and does not notice. The stop is marked done, the customer pays cash and it is recorded against the visit, the next customer's gate is locked so the visit is skipped with a note, and the rain sets in at stop nine. The undone stops are moved to Thursday in one go, as described in the rain days post. None of that needed a connection. When the van reaches the main road, the queue sends: the done, the cash, the skip, the carry-over. The office sees the round's state, the owed figure updates, and the "we're coming Thursday" texts can go out. The cleaner did not think about signal once. [Image: Plan my day on the phone: the morning decisions are made once and sent to the phone, so the day runs from the local copy.] ### How we built it, briefly Every change is a small, self-describing operation with its own id, so sending it twice does nothing and sending it late still works. Each record carries a version tag; a change made against an old version is detected, not silently applied. The phone pulls a feed of what changed on the server since it last asked, rather than re-downloading everything. Conflict rules are declared per kind of change, and the ones that cannot be resolved automatically are surfaced to a person. That is the substance behind the marketing phrase. It applies to every trade on the trades page, because the sync layer does not know or care whether the record is a window cleaning visit or a gardening one. The live monitoring described in the tracking post rides on the same connection logic. ### How to test any app's offline claim - ✓ Put the phone in flight mode before opening the app — If it will not open, the claim is about cached pages, not work. - ✓ Mark a job done, take a photo, record a cash payment — All three, with no signal. Then book the next visit. - ✓ Change the same job from another device — Then turn the signal back on and see which change survives, and whether the app tells you. - ✓ Close the app, reopen it, still offline — The queued changes should still be there. - ✓ Reconnect and check the office view — Everything should arrive, in order, once. ### Questions people ask **Does the app work with no signal all day?** Yes, on the phone and installed apps. The day's data is on the device, changes queue on the device, and the queue sends when a connection is available, whether that is at the next stop or back at the yard that evening. **What if the phone dies before it syncs?** The queue is stored on the device, not in memory, so it survives the app being closed or the phone being restarted. Charge it and reconnect and the changes send. If the phone is lost, unsynced changes on it are lost with it, which is a reason to let it sync at the next opportunity rather than at the end of the week. **Does the web app work offline?** No, and we say so. The browser app is the always-online office surface for planning, invoicing and reporting. Offline lives in the installed apps on iOS, Android and Windows, which is where the signal actually drops. **Does offline cost extra?** No. Offline mobile on all four platforms is part of every plan, Free included, and plans are per business rather than per user. See the pricing page for the four plans. ### Take the round somewhere with no signal and see TradeYoke's phone apps work offline and sync honestly when the signal returns, on every plan. Start a 30-day trial of Essentials with no card. [Start your free trial](https://app.tradeyoke.net/signup) ]]> Carl Randall Mobile Product