Long-Awaited Rock Mobile v1.0 is Now Available

After nearly two years that encompassed everything from concept through development, Rock Mobile v1.0 has been released. However, to provide for the funding of its future development, the roll-out plan has changed from its original concept.

While the original plan was to open source the Rock Mobile Shell, the Shell will now be available exclusively through a hosted App Factory plan instead of open sourcing it. This change became necessary due to the low funding level of Spark and will provide a sustainable funding model for future Rock Mobile development. The App Factory service will handle the initial deploy of each Rock Mobile app to the app stores, as well as the ongoing Shell updates.

This might sound like a big change but it really isn't.

1. The hosting work has to be done.
2. Itʼs extremely technically challenging.
3. Itʼs work most churches aren’t equipped for.

A description of the Rock Mobile Shell.

While we've worked hard to make building and administrating an app as simple and extensible as possible, the app stores control submissions and deployment. Our team created the Rock Mobile Shell to bridge the simplicity and extensibility of the Rock platform with the rigidity and technical complexity of the app stores. This solution pairs each unique Rock Mobile app with the Rock Mobile Shell.

You can read all about these two layers and the App Factory hosting plan on our Rock Mobile page.

Building your first app.

You can build your own Rock Mobile app or work with a partner to build it for you. The app can be built and administrated in Rock v12 with the very same CMS toolset currently familiar to churches in the Rock community. In either case, once your app is built and ready, the App Factory hosting service will deploy it to the app stores.

Download the Rock Mobile Showcase app from the Apple or Google app stores to see what components have been developed to-date. These include log-in, message notes, content channel pages such as messages and blogs, prayer requests, push notifications and more. Rock Mobile v2.0 is currently in development and will include group finder, notes, improvements to calendar, push notifications and workflows, among other features.

A note about funding.

Rockʼs donation model is challenging. Last yearʼs donations did not cover the development costs for Rock and we ended the year in a deficit. The Spark board wants our development team to be sure we don't overextend ourselves and has asked us to come up with a plan in which we do not add more features than our funding can support.

To that end, features that are not mission-critical need to have some form of sustainability. Providing a way to help churches with the challenging work of publishing their Rock Mobile apps, and an affordable price to fund continuing Rock Mobile development is a win-win for the community and sustainability.

The long-awaited Rock Mobile feature set is perfectly positioned to complement your digital strategy in 2021 and the App Factory service model is set to ensure its future success.