Mobile app development in Florence: from prototype to the store
iOS and Android apps for customers, visitors and service users, with the backend that keeps them running. Working office at Impact Hub Florence, and the person at the first meeting is the person who writes the code.
The hard part
The app is
the visible part.
When an app faces people outside the company — a customer, a visitor, a subscriber — the screen is only the tip. Underneath there is a backend that has to hold up, an admin panel someone updates without calling a developer, and a store review process whose rules change every year.
That is where projects stall: the interface is ready and the rest is not. It happens with prototypes, and increasingly with the ones generated quickly using AI coding tools, which look finished and are not.
We start from the end: how it gets updated, who updates it, what happens when there are a thousand users. Then we design the app.
What we build here
The apps we get
asked for in Florence.
The city brings certain projects more than others: services, culture, hospitality, early-stage digital products.
Apps for your customers
Bookings, case status, cards and points, messages. An app makes sense when people come back often: if they visit once a year, a web page does the same job for a fraction of the cost.
Culture, tourism and place
Trails, content unlocked on location, maps that work without signal. For Palazzuolando we did something similar with QR codes along walking routes, with the association uploading content from a phone.
A startup first product
When the idea is validated and you need the first real version — the one you can show an investor and put in users' hands. Tight scope, firm dates, and room to grow without rebuilding.
Prototypes that need to go live
If you already have something running that will not hold a real audience — security, performance, blocked updates — the route is recovery, not a rewrite. → Maintenance for AI-generated software
How we build them
What sits
under the screen.
The decisions that determine whether the app is still maintainable in two years.
One codebase, two stores
A hybrid app: one project, both platforms. For service apps the difference against native is invisible, and every later change costs half because it is made once.
Backend and admin panel
Laravel on the server side, with a panel your team uses to publish content, manage users and read the data. Without it, every text change becomes a developer request.
Measured from day one
Events and conversions tracked from the first release, because the question after launch is always the same: where do people drop off. We build the tracking ourselves rather than asking another supplier.
Publishing and lifecycle
We handle store listings, reviews and later releases. The accounts stay yours and the handover documentation means another team could take over.
Real work
A published app
and its backend.
Where we are
The Florence office.
Via Panciatichi 10/14
50141 Firenze (FI)
We can meet at Impact Hub, in Via Panciatichi, or wherever suits you: an hour to see whether the project stands up and what the first version really needs.
FAQ
Before you ask.
For a first version with a defined scope, think months rather than weeks: on top of development there is store review, which has its own timing and occasionally asks for changes. Dates are in the quote, and requests arriving mid-project are quoted separately instead of quietly moving everything.
If the app shows content that changes, handles users or records anything, yes. Apps without a backend are purely informational — and in that case a website built for mobile is usually the better spend. We will say so before you pay for an app.
Almost always, and it is often the cheaper route. We review what can be kept and what has to be rebuilt, and you get that answer in writing before work starts. → Software Rescue
You do. Repositories, sources and credentials are yours on delivery, and the Apple and Google accounts are opened in your company name from the start.
The same people who built it, under a maintenance agreement covering iOS and Android updates and fixes. It is a service, not a condition: stop it and the app keeps working.
No, we run projects anywhere. Having an office here helps in the phase where you decide what to build, which goes much faster in person. Our registered office is in Prato, where we mostly build apps connected to business systems.
Have an app idea and want to know if it stands up?
Bring what you have — sketches, a prototype, a document. In an hour we will tell you what the first version needs, what can wait, and the order of magnitude involved.
ISO 9001:2015 certified
Written requirements, tracked changes, a defined path for every issue.
Benefit Corporation
Goals written into the bylaws, an impact report every year.
Listed on MePA
The Italian public sector e-procurement marketplace.
