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Show HN: Judo - Build Native App Experiences with No Code

by krzyzanowskim on 8/13/21, 10:31 AM with 64 comments

• by darylteo on 8/13/21, 11:35 AM

  So... this is a sdk + platform that basically downloads a "description" of an app onto the device, then builds a UI based on that description?

  Is this actually positioning itself to be a realistic replacement for production ready native apps? Or is this just meant to be a rapid prototyping / 1 use throwaway apps?

  From the use case it seems one could use Judo for specific parts of an app, for example, a user onboarding flow, together with A-B testing, while allowing the rest of the app a native build?

• by danpalmer on 8/13/21, 5:49 PM

  I like this a lot. I'm currently thinking a lot about how to expose more control of our article content to our content team. They want to be able to build much more complex layouts, use more imagery, embed videos, control the information hierarchy, and even do basic interaction like buttons to go to show/hide different content.

  We're all SwiftUI, so while creating each bit of this isn't a lot of work itself, we need to add it to our API, backend, CMS, editor, database, etc. The more control we can give them over all this the better.

  That said, there are things where we (as an engineering team) still need some control. Device support, accessibility – I can see these are fully supported and can be previewed, that's great! A few things that look missing that it would be good to see:

  - Design system/styles/etc – we have a set of styles, colours, typefaces, padding sizes, etc that we want to use and/or strongly encourage.

  - Custom data. We'd like to be able to pass in details from the system, like who's logged in, name and other user properties that matter in our product.

  - Custom components. We have things like a product card component that it would be great to be able to re-use here. How that would get its data though... not sure.

  - Custom actions. I can see something about this in the app but not sure how it works. We would want to be able to link to places in the app, ideally with URLs, and have responsibility of presenting that UI handed back to the non-Judo part of the app.

  I may be assuming a lot about the product here, maybe this isn't the direction you're thinking, but I'm generally excited by this and keen to see how it develops over time.

• by rvnx on 8/13/21, 11:39 AM

  I registered on the website, got pretty confused by the fact nothing tells you how to create an experience. Nowhere there is a link to the editor app. The link is on the homepage but the homepage redirects you to the control panel if you are logged-in so you have to open an incognito session.

  Once you have the incognito session, you can find a download link, but it opens the App Store, which requires an account, which requires a bank card to download.

  Is there a .dmg somewhere ? (I cannot use the software due to that, Apple keeps rejecting my bank card, but it's a bit sad because I'd like to try).

  Also, where is the pricing ?

  What if your servers are down ?

• by dmix on 8/13/21, 5:21 PM

  Is CX the new word for UX? Took me a minute to figure out what "We put the X in Mobile CX" meant.

  I've heard people not wanting to call customers "users" but haven't come across it yet. IMO it only makes sense as a distinction from the end-user. Otherwise user is already well embedded in our language (username, user interface, user manual, etc).

• by rchaud on 8/13/21, 2:09 PM

  Is there a reason the desktop app requires Mac OS 11?

  I'm interested in this area as marketing teams do need to create ephemeral apps every now and then. One of my favourites is the Nike Lookbook App of 2015; by far one of the best and most visually creative things I've seen. Unfortunately it was removed from the app store.

  https://news.nike.com/news/tech-book

• by lxe on 8/13/21, 7:43 PM

  I'm seeing a lot of HN lauch posts with "book a demo" link instead of a demo video or demo app or pricing page. Why is this becoming a trend?

• by a-priori on 8/13/21, 4:47 PM

  As someone who practices Judo (the martial art) this made me very confused.

• by steve_taylor on 8/13/21, 11:49 AM

  Where's the documentation? I can't figure out how to use a data source. I've been able to add a collection to it and set the path to the array in the API response, but how to I render data from the collection?

  Edit: Figured it out. It uses double brace syntax, e.g. {{data.email}}.

• by holoduke on 8/13/21, 4:43 PM

  Playing the devil's advocate here. But what problem is this product trying to solve. Completely unclear. Is it by reducing development needs?

• by mdomans on 8/13/21, 11:28 AM

  Oh boy, the IJF is going to have an epic hissy fit

• by erikig on 8/13/21, 3:19 PM

  Is there a showcase of live apps that are built on Judo?

• by henning on 8/13/21, 8:19 PM

  There's no code just like serverless apps have no server.

  There is still code. You just no longer control it. If it doesn't work the way it needs to, you are completely fucked.

• by astlouis44 on 8/13/21, 7:58 PM

  OK I have to know - what framework did you use to make your front end landing page? It's absolute beautiful.

  I'm guessing React?

• by mellosouls on 8/13/21, 12:10 PM

  Where's the "Show"? It would be useful to have a straight link to an immediately useable instance.

• by peterthehacker on 8/13/21, 3:26 PM

  Can Judo build native desktop apps as well or just mobile apps?

• by binkHN on 8/13/21, 2:12 PM

  "Judo is a Mac Application," so Mac only

• by pluc on 8/13/21, 12:09 PM

  WYSIWYG editor for native development

  what could possibly go wrong

• by secondaryacct on 8/13/21, 11:53 AM

  When will we be able to build native experience without apps next !!?