NativePHP for mobile—# update!

[simonhamp]

Earlier this week I spoke at the Laravel Worldwide Meetup where I unveiled:

1. 🌐 A brand new nativephp.com, lovingly (and painstakingly!) crafted by the incredible @HassanZahirnia
2. 💳 New # options for NativePHP for mobile
3. 🤖 A teaser of the incredible work that @shanerbaner82 has been doing on Android

I also shared a 'behind the curtain' look at how NativePHP for iOS works and some learnings I've taken away from the whole process.

Spoiler: There's no magic—only patience, persistence and perseverance!

More accessible

The great news is that you can now get in on the EAP from just $50! Our new Mini and Pro licenses are currently priced at $50 and $150 respectively. (All prices are USD.)

The original EAP license is now called a Max license and represents the very best offering. Everyone who joined the EAP at this level is now considered an owner of a Max license.

Some things to note:

• A license grants you the right to distribute a certain number of mobile apps to the stores (Mini = 1 production app, Pro = 10 production apps, Max = unlimited)
• Licenses are not transferable
• Your license is for life
• All licenses come with 1 year of updates included
  • You may see that your license "expires" in one year from the date of purchase. This only relates to getting updates
• Renewing your license entitles you to access the latest releases of NativePHP for mobile
• The renewal price is the regular license price for the license you purchased, so if you got Max during the EAP for $250, it will renew at $250
• You are free to choose not to renew your license. You may continue building apps, releasing as many on the stores as your license allows, even after it has "expired". You simply will not be able to get newer versions of the packages that are released after your license expired
• If your license expires, you will need to purchase a new one at its current price in order to start getting updates again
• These prices will stay in place during the EAP, which will end when Android support is made available

I'm delighted to be able to make NativePHP for mobile accessible to more developers and I'm even more excited to see what all of you will build with this tool.

Why not free?

NativePHP for mobile has been months and months of work in the making. And there are still many months (even years) of work ahead of us.

I want to make this a sustainable project. To not do so would be a disservice to all of you.

It is becoming increasingly demanding on my time to support the project and while there are more contributors than ever, I cannot—and do not ever—expect people to work for free.

Sadly, continuing to rely solely on donations and failed attempts to get funding is both a distraction from the project and would not provide anywhere near enough support to be sustainable.

This would most likely lead to long periods of inactivity, shattered dreams, incomplete features, and long-forgotten support tickets.

We've all seen this happen. Some of us have been there personally on more than one occasion. We all hate it.

Making NativePHP for mobile free would not have been healthy for me personally and absolutely would not serve the community.

The income we generate from NativePHP for mobile licenses is going straight back into the development of all aspects of NativePHP, even the free & open source parts.

It's allowing me to start financially supporting a number of core contributors, invest in building tools like Zephpyr that will help you build and release your apps more efficiently (with the help of @SRWieZ), and buy out more of my own time and that of people like Shane so that we can tackle more development and support issues.

Then we can have nice things, like Android support.

But... "adoption"

Some folks have argued that adoption will be lower because of this.

Well, you've no argument from me! It's a fact, adoption will undoubtedly be lower because the barrier to entry is money.

But I'm ok with adoption being lower.

NativePHP doesn't need adoption to be successful, it doesn't need to take over the world.

It just needs to work well for whoever wants to use it.

Making it free isn't going to convince more people to use it. It's a very new technology, its best days are still ahead of it. When there are other technologies with more features already available for free, already boasting hundreds of thousands of users, it doesn't make sense to compete on price or adoption because the truth is we'll never get close.

I started exploring this project because I knew that if someone else had built this product, I would pay to use it, because I know I would get immense value out of it.

And I strongly believed that other people would see similar, if not more, value in it.

So I introduced it as a premium package in the hope that just one person would be intrigued enough by the prospect of running Laravel on iOS that they would support the project. And this would spur me on to continue this wild endeavor.

I was completely overwhelmed by the response. Almost overnight, dozens of you voted with your wallets, which assured me that this project is worth continuing.

And continue it shall! 🚀

There are now hundreds of us, and I'm confident that there will soon be thousands of us, who have never built mobile apps before, building them faster than anyone with the tools we love.

I've committed to making some of my work on the static-php-cli project openly available to everyone in the coming weeks. This means that soon everyone will be able to build PHP for iOS in the same way and do what they like with it.

We'll add Android support in there too when it's ready.

(Note that this won't include our proprietary NativePHP extension.)

At some point, we will also have an open source and freely available version of these NativePHP packages, that will allow everyone to run their Laravel apps on mobile devices.

This is thanks to all of you. We wouldn't have been able to get so far up this mountain without you!

For now, we keep climbing.

🏔️

[RonDarby]

Keep up the good work!!!!! You've got this!

[simonhamp]

Thanks Ron!

[thenexxuz]

Sounds great!

[jcerdan]

Hi,
This project looks really great!
Will there be a test time for Android devices before EAP ending? I have read that EAP ends when Android version is available but I don't have a Mac nor an iOS so I can't test it before...
So, that's the question, will we have at least 1 week in EAP with Android support?
Best regards,

[simonhamp]

When Android support is released, this will end the EAP. If you would like EAP #, it's best to purchase a license ahead of this.

[jcerdan]

Hi @simonhamp
ok thank you.
Just purchased a license and will wait for Android release.
Best

[avazquez-bit]

Hi, I have another question... before updating prices there was a little text with "increases to $price after then EAP" where the $price was higest depending on license, but now just say "Renews at $price" and $price is now at the same cost, so if we purchase any license after EAP it keeps at the same price??? or that prices are just for new EAP and renewals for EAP licences, and new licences after EAP will have an increment cost???

keep shining!!!

[avazquez-bit]

Yeah, thanks, but I have a new question, if I purchade a pro license to realse 10 production apps, if want to realse the same app for android and iOS i will take just 1 app release for both of them or take 1 for android and 1 for iOS???

[simonhamp]

1 app = all app stores

[avazquez-bit]

Perfect. Thank you so much!!!

keep shining!!!

[avazquez-bit]

Hey!!! it's me again...

I have a new question, so a few days ago, one customer contact me looking for an app, at the beggingin the app its gonna be developed and mainteined by my team, but in a future the customer probably buy it, so in this scenario we need to give them all around app, including source code... so What happens here with license???

In the first moment, when the app is developed, updated and mainteiden by us, we do all about app like servers, integrations, services and so on, when a customer buy the app including source code, now they will be the owners but the license of nativephp as I undetand is not tranferible, so what happens there??? what we can do about license???

[simonhamp]

@avazquez-bit your customer will need to purchase their own license

[safeboot]

Hi, I'm just wondering if there will be a student pack where they can develop a couple of apps and when they're ready release 1 or upgrade to the Mini to publish? Thanks.

[avazquez-bit]

I think this is not cosidered on bussiness model, but ti's a great idea, its a way to get more developers

[salamwaddah]

Just got my EAP Max license!

[carloscarucce]

I just found this project and the concept is just AMAZING.

Unfortunately, because of the lack of a free version I can't test this and I will explain why below:

• I am unemployed, temporarily (for almost half a year to the date), doing activities unrelated to development/IT so I can cover mortgage and other expenses.
• Even at the lowest subscription price, in the country I live the price tag of 50 USD represents almost 479 after taxes. Which is almost half of the current minimum wage here.

I don't want anyone feeling bad nor charity. I just want that you may consider a test or a non-commercial licensing in the future so we could have a chance to deliver apps using PHP (my preferred language since I started 14 years ago); as ReactNative currently do for JS.

Let it spread more easily and give people in the same situation as me at least a chance to study your tool.