Meeting notes from mobile planning session
Attendees
- Ryan
- Aaron
- Jude
- Ken
- Larry
- Chase
- Muneeb
Agenda
- Mobile timeline
- iOS and Android
- Strategy for development
- Native vs React Native vs. wrapper
- On-boarding process
- Features that we want to support
- Process for developing across platforms
- How we segment the team
Questions and One-Line Answers
- iOS first and then Android second?
- We will do them simultaneously in Phase 1 (SDK-only)
- Native or React Native or web or Cordova?
- Not doing a mobile app immediately
- Ken on iOS and a new Android hire on Android?
- SDK will be developed as cross-platform friendly as possible
- What exactly are developing on mobile?
- Phase 1: SDK-focuse
- Phase 2: progressive on-boarding to a native expeirence
- What is our strategy for the SDK?
- Cross-platform development — support for
- What do we want the user experience to be?
- What are the constraints of the platforms?
- What is the minimum feature set for the mobile product?
- SDK for Apps
- Ability to on-board users
- What is the end goal of the mobile product?
- How does multi-device / cross-platform operation work?
- Same twelve-word phrase on all items
- Phase 2: support for multiple devices
- What is the on-boarding process like for new users of the mobile product?
- Simple web view for creating a blockstack identity and then going back into App — this is included as part of the SDK
- What is the on-boarding process like for users who first discover a Blockstack app?
- See above — we are focusing on the app SDK first, then the web app view
- What is the primary discovery mechanism or user flow?
- For blockstack-interested users: blockstack.org → web application
- For app-interested users: SDK authentication flow
Android vs. iOS
- Android very popular (especially outside of US, where our potential userbase is much larger)
- Should we develop them simultaneously?
- What devices are we using personally
- We have strong iOS resources currently, but would have to hire for Android
- Cross-platform library/SDK written in Javascript?
Blockstack on Mobile Development: Native v. React Native v. Web
- Smoothness of React Native depends on whether or not you have to use a lot of native APIs
- Larry: you can use
blockstack.jsand reuse that across some platforms — hopefully you end up not re-implementing any logic.
What is the minimum feature set? - We’re here to help apps get off the ground who want a good mobile experience
- Requirement: If someone comes to a Blockstack App first, they cannot be required to download a second app
- Potential plan: Ship SDK first and then ship an app
- Three phases:
- SDK
- React Native / Cordova
- Full Native
- Three phases:
Recovery for Users who On-Board on App
- Requirement: Blockstack cannot store shards
- Apps will want to have a way to backup a user’s private key somewhere…
- We need a story for ‘lost my blockstack identity’:
- 2 Parts:
- Documented best practices for backing up and storing a user’s app private key (perhaps some support in the SDK?)
- A way to log in to an app if you have the App-Private-Key but not your identity key
- Where is a user’s private key stored?
Proposal: Phase 1
- Focus on on-boarding flow on blockstack.org
- Focus on SDK
- Shift away from desktop native — focus on web experience.
- Same experience, desktop or mobile
- For additional security, you can download a native authenticator — a place to store your keys.
- The web experience calls out to this authenticator?
- What are we delivering?
- An authenticator
- Profile management
- An app store
- An authenticator
- Mobile experience —
- Start with no-mobile-app — nail the web experience, and the SDKs
- SDK includes the on-boarding experience
- App store is in web
- Phase 2: native solves security problem and user’s desire for a mobile experience
- Larry:
- Users with multiple browsers on desktop have a bad experience
- Many users use incognito or private browsing all the time on mobile
- Our protocol handler situation is still bad
- Decision: focus on the SDK
- All the user has to do maximum — open webview — user enters e-mail and password (of their choosing)
- E-mail could be pre-filled
- In AwesomeApp, user clicks “sign in with blockstack”, Web View opens, User enters e-mail and password, then goes back to AwesomeApp
- Problem: user doesn’t think of themselves as having signed up for Blockstack
- We want users to think ‘sign in with Blockstack’ — otherwise, we get no benefit for users in the ecosystem
- Specifically, focus on the experience of a user going to a DApp first
- Ship SDK as wrapper of
blockstack.js - A logic on
blockstack.orgfor the on-boarding flow of the sign-in
- Ship SDK as wrapper of
- This ‘punts’ on multiple-device
- Just input your twelve-word phrase on both devices
- Still need to hire for SDK on Android ?
- In terms of this sprint:
- Research for the SDK — cross-platform tools?
- Protocol handler — we auto-redirect to a web client or something
- This is going to be documented in Authentication
Proposal for Phase 2
- Build mobile apps for Android and iOS
- Allow for progressive on-boarding where users can migrate from the web experience to a native experience
- Trezor support
Key Management Story
- Use the same key across devices
Roadmap
- Mobile SDK
- Mobile Web
- blockstack.org becomes browser.blockstack.org — a user uses an app within 60 seconds
Possible Authentication routes:
Key Take-Aways
Five point plan.
- Mobile SDK
- Ken and larry will take lead on SDK for iOS and Android (as cross-platform as possible)
- Move more functionality into blockstack.js
- ongoing work of everyone
- mobile web sign up & user management
- Chase could take the lead here
- desktop shift browser to blockstack.org
- Everyone focuses on this
- Native Blockstack mobile app will be in phase 2