Mobile Product on an Accelerated Timeline
Built and Delivered On Time
- Industry
- Corporate Mobility & Transportation
- Service
- Cross-Platform Mobile Development | React Native + Ruby on Rails | Agile Sprint Delivery | MVP-to-Production Hand-off
Overview
The client needed help building mobile products on an accelerated timeframe. Sphere was asked to build a mobile application that allows employees to pay for a taxi using a corporate account.
The goal: ship an MVP within three months, share 90%+ of the code between iOS and Android, and preserve important structural commonalities between mobile and the existing web version — all while requirements remained fluid and features were added or removed with every sprint.
How We Solved It
Sphere ran a tight, three-month engagement with three developers, one designer, and two shared QA analysts. The team used Slack and Jira with bi-weekly sprints, in-person and video sync meetings, and a familiar agile loop: business requirements → designs → review → development → QA → release. The technical decisions were the difference between hitting the deadline and missing it:
1. Cross-Platform with React Native
Standard mobile development approaches (Swift for iOS, Java for Android) wouldn’t fit the budget or the timeframe. React Native — JavaScript under the hood, just like the existing React.js web app — let mobile developers reverse-engineer the web feature logic and reuse a single code base across iOS and Android, dramatically cutting build and maintenance cost.
2. Ruby on Rails Backend
Ruby on Rails powered the backend, with the same business logic exposed to mobile and web. The shared API kept iOS, Android, and web consistent and reduced surface area for bugs as features moved between platforms.
3. Tight Sprint Discipline & Tooling
Bi-weekly sprints, design hand-offs in Zeplin, source control in GitHub, code-quality monitoring in Codeclimate, error reporting via Airbrake, and Jira for planning kept a fluid scope honest. The discipline meant the team could absorb scope changes without slipping the three-month deadline.
Key Outcomes
MVP Delivered in 3 Months
The MVP was completed within the three-month deadline, released for internal use, and shipped publicly after acceptance testing.
90%+ Code Reuse Across iOS & Android
A single React Native code base served both platforms, drastically reducing build cost and maintenance overhead.
20% of Platform Orders
Within the first months of public release, the new mobile app was responsible for 20% of all orders on the platform — and growing every week.
No Slipped Deadlines
Despite a fluid scope with features added and dropped every sprint, the project hit every release window without compromising quality.
The Results
A working MVP shipped within the three-month deadline, was used internally first, then publicly. Today the app accounts for 20% of all orders on the platform — a number that continues to grow every week — proving that an accelerated cross-platform build can deliver real production traction without cutting corners.
