
Launch HN: Glide (YC W19) – Mobile Apps from Google Sheets - dvdsgl
Hello, HN!<p>We&#x27;re Antonio, David, Jason, and Mark. We’re building Glide (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;glideapps.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;glideapps.com</a>). Before this we worked on Xamarin, quicktype, Ubuntu, Mono, and GNOME Do :D<p>Glide makes it easy &amp; fun for anyone to create apps without code. Pick a Google Sheet and Glide assembles a polished, data-driven app that you can customize, share as a PWA, and publish to the App Store and Google Play if you desire.<p>We&#x27;ve spent the last decade building developer tools. In that time we&#x27;ve watched thousands of developers struggle to design, implement, and maintain apps, and most developers we know avoid mobile development altogether.<p>Apart from developers, we hear worthy app ideas from non-technical colleagues, friends, and family every day: apps for work, new business ideas, and silly apps just for fun. All of these people can make websites, so why can&#x27;t they make apps?<p>We were dismayed to find that there are hundreds of &#x27;low-code app builders&#x27;, but none that excited us. They&#x27;re enterprisey, they output kludgy apps, and their low-code contrivances often felt more complicated than the code they replaced. Why hasn&#x27;t anyone made the Google Docs or Figma of apps yet, we wondered.<p>That&#x27;s our ambition. Glide makes app development web-based, collaborative (coming), and fun by combining data-bound components with a familiar spreadsheet model. Spreadsheets are the most successful programming model of all time, and smartphones are the most successful computer, so we&#x27;re bringing them together to enable anyone to create apps without code.<p>We&#x27;ve implemented a component model based on self-adjusting computation (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.umut-acar.org&#x2F;self-adjusting-computation" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.umut-acar.org&#x2F;self-adjusting-computation</a>), which allows Glide apps to update efficiently and continuously just like spreadsheets. You can see the benefit of this in our Comments component, which syncs comments in real-time to instances of the same app. In other words, Glide apps are multiplayer by default.<p>We&#x27;re just getting started and would love feedback on the approach. There are many technical&#x2F;design challenges ahead of us but we are encouraged by the useful apps our users have created with this early version. We even use Glide to build Glide–internally we&#x27;ve created dashboard apps, an app to share updates with our advisors, a directory that shows us which Glide apps are trending, and an app for our YC group.<p>Next on our roadmap: forms, improved image handling, notifications, and offline.<p>- Get started: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;go.glideapps.com&#x2F;?signUp" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;go.glideapps.com&#x2F;?signUp</a><p>- Video demo: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=smNwrz9wMxU" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=smNwrz9wMxU</a><p>- App templates: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.glideapps.com&#x2F;samples" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.glideapps.com&#x2F;samples</a><p>Thank you.
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dvdsgl
Here's a sample app in case you're browsing on mobile:
[https://go.glideapps.com/play/OAm2s2UzjLlDcTlx0JW6](https://go.glideapps.com/play/OAm2s2UzjLlDcTlx0JW6)

(The Glide app builder cannot be opened on mobile yet)

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bankisan
This is great! A lot of my non-progammer friends want to make apps like these
and this is the first product that I think is simple enough to recommend.
Congrats on the launch and I look forward to trying it out.

~~~
dvdsgl
Thank you so much! It's currently simplistic but we hope to add more power but
keep it approachable for your friends.

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edko
Isn't it risky to promise that the app will be published in the App Store and
Google Play, when that is really up to a third party to decide?

~~~
dvdsgl
I see what you mean. Yes perhaps we should say "Export to App Store & Google
Play"? Although 'export' is also a technical concept. What we really offer is
native builds, and eventually we will help you publish them.

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zackbrown
How about ‘submit’?

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kcorey
I could really see how this would help corporate types. We have lots of
reports, etc, that would be so much more informative in-the-hand rather than
in-powerpoint.

However, that would require allowing a company to be self-hosting. We don't
use Slack, for example, we use RocketChat, as no information has to go off-
campus...it's all stored locally.

Any plans to release that sort of approach?

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prtkgpt
This is great. I am a big fan of building processes using AirTable. I am
looking forward to seeing Glide + AirTable integration. Excited for your team!

~~~
dvdsgl
Thank you! Yes we are looking forward to that integration too!

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LeicaLatte
I tried it and you definitely have got something going. Great synergy with
google docs.

Curious if your tech works with a CSV file. Did you ever consider it? What
will it take given your current stack? How google docs dependent are you? Are
you okay with google buying/cloning you out if it comes to that?

~~~
dvdsgl
Thank you! We actually started with JSON! It is trivial for us to support CSV
and we are not tied to Google Sheets—we plan to add more data sources.

~~~
LeicaLatte
Very cool.

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huangc10
Hi, this is indeed really cool. Just a couple of questions:

1) I'm not really understanding how the apps are shared? Ex. when a user scans
the QR code or opens the glide app link sent to them, do the apps open in a
browser from the phone? The UI shown on the website don't seem to have a URL
bar or browser navigation so I'm a little confused as to what actually
happens...

2) I find that one of the harder parts of developing an app is getting the App
Store/Google Play Store account/license/certificates/submission process. Do
you guys have plans to streamline this with tools such as Fastlane? Maybe a
developer portal to easily import this to App Store Connect or Google Play
Console?

~~~
dvdsgl
Thanks!

Glide apps are first and foremost PWAs. We're rolling out shortlink support
soon, so your app would be something like mycoolapp.glideapp.io. Android will
prompt you to add the app to your homescreen, and on iOS we show a similar
prompt. You can pay for a custom domain.

On our paid plan, we can export native builds for you to publish to app
stores. Currently we have a React Native implementation of Glide that runs the
app natively, rather than wrapped.

Yes, we are looking into streamlining the store publishing process in any way
we can, and fastlane will come in handy. We've been surprised by how many
users have been satisfied with PWAs so far, though.

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aloukissas
This is phenomenal. Great set of base elements, styles, etc. Great job, team!

~~~
dvdsgl
Thanks a lot!

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10dpd
This is an extremely risky business. It’s a simple concept - Google Sheets API
to Firebase to App that we’ve used many times before, however Apple may decide
to block these apps at any time as it has done in the past, eg see this
article:

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/20/apple-revises-its-
controve...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/20/apple-revises-its-
controversial-guidelines-on-template-based-apps/)

Edit: And its broken with a Firebase error "Error : could not handle request".

~~~
kkarakk
i would hope apps like this are banned from the app store, too much auto
generated garbaged. corporates can always use the enterprise app development
program and that's who i think this is aimed at

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pdxandi
Just an FYI that I'm currently getting an error after signing up.

When I click "New App," there's a modal popup that says, "In order to select
an item from your online storage, please sign in." I click "Sign in" and
another popup opens and closed immediately. I click it again and the same
thing happens, but then the center modal is replaced with, "There was an
error! Details: The feature you requested is currently unavailable. Please try
again later."

~~~
dvdsgl
I'm sorry, but there are two seemingly redundant popups in our sign-up process
right now. You have to auth via Google twice–once to sign up, and once to
authorize Google Drive. This should be fixed this week.

~~~
pdxandi
I believe my issue is different.

I wasn't seeing the normal Google auth screen; I signed-out to see if there
was an account sync issue, and I can't seem to sign back in now. I click sign-
in, the normal Google auth screen pops-up, I select my account, and the button
in the bottom-left corner gets stuck on "Signing in..."

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jassmith87
Hey man, can you give me the developer console output. I am very curious what
the issue here is, sometimes we have seen extensions like ghostery interfere
with the login process but I'm guessing you already would have checked that
considering this is HN :)

~~~
pdxandi
Yeah, I looked through the console. The only log is one analytics script that
was blocked:

_GET[https://cdn.segment.com/analytics.js/v1/s5swIuWdyLEwzdp3HXwc...](https://cdn.segment.com/analytics.js/v1/s5swIuWdyLEwzdp3HXwcaxYXUbi5Bnzu/analytics.min.js)
net::ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT_

~~~
pdxandi
I'm using Chrome 72.0.3626.109 (64-bit) on OS X 10.14.

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elamje
Hey, this might be a dumb question, but how is image data stored and accessed?
The example shows images, but I wasn't sure where that's being hosted. Google
Drive?

~~~
dvdsgl
Right now images are just raw URLs. We need to do some work to make this
simpler!

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JonathanW1
Awesome idea and great execution!! Great work, guys.

Found one bug with the "tiles" layout:
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/p8e31lzzjdmin6x/Screen%20Shot%2020...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/p8e31lzzjdmin6x/Screen%20Shot%202019-02-20%20at%207.56.19%20PM.png?dl=0)

You might consider chopping long titles with ellipses.

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fabiandesimone
As a marketer this is incredible and the possibilities are endless. Any plans
to allow creators to add ads so the apps can be monetized?

~~~
mark-probst
We haven't thought about that much yet. What kinds of apps are you thinking of
building?

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fabiandesimone
Well, information apps. Is not to far from your examples but I would like a
way to monetize them.

Also, do you plan on adding or integrating a service (not sure if doable) for
push notifications (for new content, reminders, etc)?

~~~
mark-probst
Yes, notifications is something we're working on right now.

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ezez
I'm having fun with it, but I sure can't seem to change anything to do with
aesthetics - font colours, font size etc? Is this possible or on the roadmap?

Otherwise, I'm impressed by the quality of the PWA (thought it might be React
Native based at first) and the "it just works" factor.

~~~
mark-probst
Thank you!

We will add more options to customize the look of the apps. It's important to
us not to overload users with fine-grained controls that require design
expertise to get good-looking results, though.

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ezez
That's an interesting point. As an app developer myself (so maybe not the
target audience) I'd love to be able to change some aspects of it, even if it
made things look "bad" as it would be a part of the fun/identity of the app.
I'm not asking to adjust layout per-se (as that's more complex), but simply to
manipulate fonts/colours etc. would be quite fun :)

Anyways, glad it's on the roadmap! I'll keep an eye on it.

~~~
daltonhurd
Ya know, draftbit.com is in beta right now and offers some pretty complex
styling of React Native screens without messing with code. Although no way to
import data... yet ;)

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nsx147
Cool! So who is the target user for this product (technical and non-
technical?)? Revenue model?

~~~
mark-probst
Our early target market is small to medium businesses. Right now Glide is
still rough around the edges, so being a little technical definitely helps,
but we'll make it a lot easier to use. Right now we're charging monthly for
apps that require sign-in, need to remove our branding, or need to be
published to app stores. See
[https://www.glideapps.com/#pricing](https://www.glideapps.com/#pricing)

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pdxandi
Congrats on the launch! I like the look and feel of the dashboard and am
wondering if you mind sharing the stack of the front-end. Are you using a UI
kit? It seems like Material Design but it feels lighter.

~~~
dvdsgl
Thank you! We're building on React and TypeScript. All of the design and
components are custom, we're glad you like it :D

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ukd1
Love this idea, and am excited to play with it. I have a few questions around
how updates and changes are propagated, plus if you're planning other types of
auth (okta, google domains)

~~~
mark-probst
Co-founder here. We propagate changes in the sheet to the app with about a 5
minute delay. Right now the app doesn't update automatically when it's
running, but it will get the new data once it restarts. We'll obviously fix
that.

Other authentication types are on our roadmap, but I can't give you a
timeline.

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valehelle
* Publishing to the App Store requires an Apple Developer subscription, sold separately.

You also need to pay to publish on Play Store right? Although it is a one time
payment instead of subscription.

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Existenceblinks
Is there a documentation link I can't seem to find hidden somewhere?

I watched to intro video, when you add the comment component, what's storage
for that user input?

Looks good!

~~~
dvdsgl
Hi! Docs are growing at the moment:
[http://help.glideapps.com](http://help.glideapps.com)

Our YouTube channel is probably the best source of info for now.

Comments are stored adjacent to the sheet in our real-time backend, and are
associated with the sheet row via the Topic that you pick. Notes are stored in
the sheet, so are not real-time.

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faitswulff
This is pretty awesome. I have a definite personal use case for it. Do you
have a way to handle media uploads?

~~~
mark-probst
Thank you!

Do you mean uploads from the app? What kinds of media are you interested in,
specifically? Right now we don't handle that, but we'd love to learn more
about what you need.

~~~
faitswulff
Basically just uploading a photo. I can definitely see that being a
convenience I might pay for. My particular use case is just inventory - I want
an app to take stock of where my inventory is, what condition it's in (hence
the photo), a name, and if it expires, the expiry date.

~~~
chrisfrantz
Would the AirTable app suffice? I believe you can complete all of those tasks
and it’s free.

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ian0
This is absolutely great. And 100% the direction we should be taking
programming. Easy, practical, just works.

Thanks Guys

~~~
dvdsgl
Thank you for trying it! We hope you build something amazing and share it.

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avip
To clarify this is read-only view of the sheet right? Is the plan to make
something more CRUD capable?

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mark-probst
For now it's mostly read-only. We have one component that lets you edit free-
form text that syncs back to the sheet, called Notes. We also have a Comments
component and a Chat tab, which don't sync to the sheet. And our big focus
right now is to add more CRUD functionality.

~~~
discordance
Will be awesome to see more data collection functionality. I build apps like
these for enterprise companies and this would fill a large gap for field
worker type apps.

Hope you don't mind working at Google, or if you add excel/O365 support,
Microsoft. Seems like a no brainer acquisition target for them!

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muhneesh
Congrats on the launch, guys. Was exciting to watch you guys grow through
Startup School.

~~~
mark-probst
Thank you Maneesh! Can't wait to see your new idea get off the ground!

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mrccc
Just wondering: How did you decide that you want to depend on Google Sheets as
a backend?

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dvdsgl
We are intrigued by the spreadsheet model of 'programming' and wanted to build
upon it. Google Sheets is just one of many such implementations and we plan to
have our own for real-time performance and other properties that Sheets
doesn't have.

From a practical standpoint, it's a data source where people already have
their data. People sign up for Glide and literally create their first app in
minutes and it's ready to share. Much of this speed is due to the fact that
their data is ready to go.

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benrawk
This sounds really cool! Maybe I’ll make an app for my family to keep us on
schedule...

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templsad
Just a curious question. What server side language are you guy using?

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brorange
I don't see an option to publish to the App Store and Google Play

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mrsareen
Looks enticing, will give it a try. Thanks for sharing.

