The GoodBarber blog

Product news, how-to guides and ideas to create, launch and grow your app.

Highlights

Marc Leonardi    4 min read

Turn documents into answers with GoodBarber Chatbot

In any app, publishing a useful document is only part of the job. People also need to find the right information when they are about to act. A clearly named file helps someone browsing a library, but a reader may arrive with a more immediate question.Employee communication is only one possible application. The same approach can support learning resources, member guides, technical references or any other useful documents shared through an app. For our example, consider a colleague trying to book a client trip who needs to know:Which travel expenses need prior approval?We have added document sources to GoodBarber Chatbot so that the files you already maintain can support these conversations. You select the documents. Users ask in their own words. The assistant looks for relevant passages and uses them to build a response.The question becomes a way into the policy. Employees can start with the decision in front of them, even when they do not know the title of the document that explains it.

  5 min read

Siri Actions: ask your GoodBarber iOS app for its latest article or video

Siri Actions now answers two new questions: the latest article and the latest video in a section of a GoodBarber iOS app. Siri names the item and offers to open it by voice. They reach every app with its next store update. Siri Actions is the set of questions a GoodBarber iOS app answers out loud, for newspapers, radio stations, schools, organizations and any app that publishes content. Its first question, "What's new", gives an overview of your home screen. When we launched it in September 2026, we said the next one would be the latest article in a section. Here it is, and the latest video comes with it. Each goes straight to one item and offers to open it. Your audience goes from a question to the article in a single conversation, without searching for it.

  7 min read

How do I adjust the shadow in my app?

In GoodBarber, a list's shadow turns on in one tap: 3 px offset, 6 px blur, black at 20%. Then adjust it down to the pixel, color included.

Latest articles

  3 min read

Your Bluesky and Mastodon posts now show up in your app

The short version. Bluesky and Mastodon are two extensions of GoodBarber, the no-code app builder, that turn the public posts of an account into articles in your app. You enter the account, and its posts arrive on their own, with images, link previews and quoted posts, while replies and reposts stay on the network. Both are free for Content apps: each section counts as one of the extensions included in your plan.The audience is there. Bluesky grew from 25.94 million to 41.41 million users in 2025, according to its 2025 transparency report, published on January 29, 2026. Here is how the two sources play out for a local newspaper with an account on each network.

  12 min read

How much does a fitness app cost in 2026? Real prices

Five ways lead to a fitness app for your business, and each is priced its own way: a flat plan, an add-on to gym software, per client, per subscriber or quoted. The table below compares what each one costs and the job it is built for.

  3 min read

The AI Extension Builder now runs on GPT-6 Luna

OpenAI released GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna on September 22, 2026, after GPT-6 Astra, the flagship of the family, earlier the same month. Luna is the smallest of the three. OpenAI describes it as its most efficient model for focused, high-volume tasks, and sells it at half the price of GPT-5.6 Luna, the model it replaces in OpenAI's own line-up.The next morning, we moved the AI Extension Builder to GPT-6 Luna, for every app, on the four moments where a model is at work: understanding your request, writing the code of the section, rewriting it when you ask for a change, and answering the questions you ask about what it built.

  7 min read

Can a mobile app work without an internet connection? What works offline and what doesn’t

A mobile app can work partially or completely without a connection if the data and functions required for a task are available on the device. A guide can display a page that was opened earlier. A podcast app can play an episode downloaded in advance. An offline-first field tool may even store a completed action locally and synchronize it later.Those are three different technical promises:Cached content: an item previously loaded from the network remains temporarily available on the device.Deliberately saved content: the user chooses an article, audio file or another supported item to keep for later.Offline-first operation: the app performs all or a critical subset of its core functions from local data. If it also accepts changes offline, those changes must be synchronized and any conflicts handled when connectivity returns.Our Offline extension supports the first two approaches for compatible content: keeping previously loaded material available and letting readers save supported items through Favorites.Android’s definition of an offline-first app requires all or a critical subset of its core functions to work without the internet. That architecture requires local data sources. If the app also accepts changes offline, it needs synchronization rules and a way to handle conflicts when connectivity returns. It is much broader than caching a page.This distinction matters when selecting an app builder or describing your own app. “Available offline” should identify a specific task. It should not imply that every screen and action behaves as it does online.

  7 min read

Do I need to update my app for a new iOS or Android?

Every year iOS and Android move up a version, and functions your app relied on stop existing. Who tracks those deadlines, what gets adapted on your behalf, and why September can go back to being a normal month.

  9 min read

AI assistants get your business wrong? Fix the content they cite

Imagine a listener asking an assistant about a programme in September 2026 and receiving its 2025 schedule. The cited page was accurate when it was published. Nothing on it says the information has expired, so the assistant treats it as current. The listener misses the programme, or writes to your team to ask which version is right. An old membership offer or a former studio address produces the same confusion.Carolyn Shelby raised this issue in Search Engine Journal on September 7, 2026: contradictory information about a brand can mislead AI search. Three mechanisms explain why your own pages end up in the answer:Assistants retrieve pages by wording. A question that uses a programme's former name leads straight to an archive that still contains it.They merge several sources into one answer. The dates that separated those sources become hard to see.A new page does not retire the old one. The current schedule and the old statement both remain available, and nothing tells the assistant which one applies.So start with the source the assistant cited. Which sentence on that page no longer describes your service? That sentence needs a date and a route to the current answer.

  8 min read

Siri Actions: the MCP of your iOS app

Siri Actions lets your iOS app answer "what's new?" by voice, with nothing to set up on your side. Here is how it works, what it deliberately does not do, and when it reaches your app.

  10 min read

Mobile app content strategy: what to publish, how often and what to measure

Imagine a professional association that publishes a news item whenever someone has time: three updates during conference week, then silence for a month. Members cannot predict what the app will help them do. The editorial team cannot tell which work deserves to continue.A mobile app content strategy defines the result content should produce, the recurring needs it will answer, the formats and rhythm the team can sustain, how publications will be distributed and which available signals will lead to a decision.This guide is about the content published and consumed inside a mobile app—not content marketing used to promote an app. Store screenshots, acquisition campaigns and social posts may bring people in. The strategy here begins after they arrive.A calendar is only the visible output. The strategy is the reasoning that decides what earns a place on it.

  13 min read

Google Play closed testing: how to get 12 testers through 14 days on your own

Google asks for something simple, worded in a way that scares people: before you can apply for production, your app must have gone through a closed test with at least 12 testers opted in continuously for at least 14 days.QuestionAnswerWho is affected?Personal developer accounts created on or after 13 November 2023Who isn't?Organization accounts, and personal accounts created before that dateHow many testers?12 minimum, at the same timeFor how long?14 days, consecutiveWhat breaks the counterA tester who leaves the program. If they come back, their 14 days start overWhat unlocks the next stepThe Apply for production button on the Play Console dashboardHow long Google takesUsually seven days or lessSource: Play Console Help — App testing requirements for new personal developer accounts, checked 11 September 2026.Two clarifications that save a lot of anxiety. First, the counter tracks your testers' opt-in, not your builds: shipping a new release to the closed track during the 14 days resets nothing. Second, it really is 12 Google accounts — not 12 devices, not 12 five-star reviews.

  10 min read

Mobile app onboarding: best practices to drive users to value faster

Imagine a course app. A new learner arrives because they want a short lesson on a specific subject. Before they can begin, the app presents five introductory screens, asks them to register, requests notifications and opens on a generic news feed. Every screen may be well designed, yet the first session has failed: the learner still has not found a lesson.Mobile app onboarding is the journey from first launch to an initial useful result: the first value. Completing the action that delivers it is activation.TermWhat it describesExample in the course appOnboardingThe whole route from first launch to first valueOpening the app, finding a lesson and starting itFirst valueThe initial useful result the user came forReaching a lesson that matches the learner’s goalActivationThe observable action that indicates first valueStarting that lessonOnboarding is often reduced to the walkthrough shown on first launch, but the two are not equivalent. A walkthrough is one possible way to support the journey: a short sequence of introductory screens that provides essential context before users enter the app. In GoodBarber, the App Walkthrough extension lets you create that introduction; whether you need it depends on what stands between a new user and first value.Do not begin by deciding which introductory screens to create. Start by asking what a new user should be able to achieve. That objective defines the onboarding journey and determines whether a walkthrough, contextual guidance or direct access is the most appropriate pattern.Apple’s onboarding guidance recommends making an app understandable through use and keeping any onboarding flow brief and optional. A walkthrough helps when it removes uncertainty; otherwise, it delays the product.

  13 min read

How to Design an App Yourself: 6 Decisions, Not 40 Screens

Can you design your own app?What app design costs, and how long it takesThe six decisions that are actually yoursWhat you do not have to decideAndroid, iPhone and the webWhat about Figma?The checklist before you buildQuestions people askWhere to startMost advice about designing an app assumes you are already a designer. Research your users, map the flows, sketch wireframes, move to high fidelity, hand off to engineering. That is a real process and it is the right one for a design team.It is not an answer for someone who has an app project, a budget, and no design background.The question underneath is simpler. Can you design your own app, or do you need to pay someone? Both answers are defensible. What follows is what each one costs, and what the design work actually consists of once you remove the parts a system can handle for you.