13 ms·

Show HN: We built Lovable for Mobile Apps (uses Flutter)

46 points by wcynthia 2y ago

Hey HN. We built an AI agent, Avid, that creates beautiful Flutter Apps, much like v0 or Lovable. The agent carefully makes UI UX considerations, generates Flutter code, and you get a preview on your browser. I've gone through lots and lots of iterations to help the agent produce beautiful results. Would love your feedback. Ability to download App files and flutter code should be ready this coming week. Have a look and let me know what you think!

skillwee 2y ago
Sounds promising. What Lovable or Bolt is missing is ability to visually customize the output (like a no-code tool). Imagine if you could combine your AI agent + Flutterflow like No Code abilities? That would be magical.
- wcynthia 2y ago
  That was the idea from day one. Can't wait to ship that feature
- echelon 2y ago
  Are Lovable, Bolt, or V0 good? I haven't tried them yet. Are these tools going to replace application designers? How much work can they do, and how much remains to be done by engineers? Can they engineer complicated apps, or do they reproduce simple apps from a training set? (TODO list apps, etc.) Is the code these systems output any good? Maintainable and extensible?
  - erikig 2y ago
    They are surprisingly capable given how long they’ve been around and they allow you to eject and fully manage your code via git. I’d say try them out and share your experience.
BJones12 2y ago
You may want to change the name. Avid is also a very well recognized brand, and you won't rank highly for it either in search or in people's brains.
- bilalq 2y ago
  I feel like these concerns are often overstated. Gemini was a well-known crypto exchange. Outside of their niche, I don't think Avid is something the average person is familiar with. Even the average software engineer.
  - Oras 2y ago
    You can’t compare Google to a service just started
hodorwang 2y ago
It seems to be using Vercel to preview the app effect, which is quite interesting.
- wcynthia 2y ago
  Yes, it provides pretty quick deployments. We just hit the limit a few minutes ago. Had to upgrade
  - ZeroCool2u 2y ago
    In Project IDX you can view Flutter Web previews as a tab in VS Code. Have you considered trying some variant of that?
- jbirer 2y ago
  It's been some time that I worked with React Native, but I think you can use react-native-web to create web previews of the mobile app.
horsawlarway 2y ago
You don't accept a signup that isn't Google or Microsoft. So I guess I won't sign up... You also don't tell me this until I've already written a prompt, which is frustrating.
- uncomplexity_ 2y ago
  shitiest ux pattern ever
jurassimo 2y ago
[dead]
ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
What all these ai apps have is a certain look. it's like the bootstrap look from the early days. you know the app is being made by somebody who doesn't really care about quality. I think there is going to be a counter reaction towards artisanal apps which will come out of all of this. Just how WordPress runs 70% of the web but it's 70% of the crap web. Similarly AI will maybe create 70% of the apps but it will be 70% of the crap apps. And this is not some sort of reflection on AI. AI is actually great tech, but it's more about the person making the app and the proof of work required to show how much they care about the product. Or in this case these apps will be associated with shady fly-by-night companies trying to sell something.
- tracker1 2y ago
  I'm going to have to completely disagree on Bootstrap. The use of Bootstrap isn't an indication on a lack of quality, it's an indication on a desire for a decent UI from the start. The fact that it was widely used isn't necessarily reflective of a given app. Bootstrap, Material, etc. are all just established tools in terms of visual usability and consistency. Many people are far more concerned about having something functional over something that looks completely unique or different. Personally, I tend to dislike most UI/UX experiments in terms of usability. Not all, but definitely most are just bad compared to what most people are used to.
- BoorishBears 2y ago
  I'm like AI and I still agree. It's because models struggle with design, period. They're not great at getting things like margins right and consistent across an entire app while they're trying to follow instructions for a complex design. Similarly they understand contrast if prompted directly, but while they're implementing a complex design they'll tend to still end up making poor contrast choices with tons of default fonts everywhere. - If you iterate more and provide images back to the model, you can start to get something better, but that's tedious and the opposite of what most people using these tools are trying to do. And V0 defaults to the absolutely awful ui/shadcn which is the worst possible idea as AI driven development becomes popular (let's create a UI library with minimal design tokens, no package name, no guarantees on consistency or versioning because you literally cut and paste it and update it by applying diffs.) I'm personally excited to see if larger models with multimodal output will be able to generate detailed coherent UIs, that I can then implement using a copilot for tedious parts. To me that's the ideal flow to get something that doesn't have the "V0 Look"
Oras 2y ago
How about showing some samples created by this app? The landing page is not appealing for an app builder service.
- wcynthia 2y ago
  Yeah, it's part of our roadmap and will be shipping soon!
CASHforGOLD 2y ago
[dead]
andrewstuart 2y ago
Whenever I check out a new way of making stuff I want lots of working examples that I can actually use - a gallery/showcase. I’m not going to use a new technology just to find out what it looks like. IMO your front page should be minimum 10 examples apps to download.
- wcynthia 2y ago
  Just added screenshots to the homepage. Not exactly the best showcase, but it's a start. We'll be adding interactive mobile apps to browse through soon
ZeroCool2u 2y ago
This is very cool. I've been using Project IDX and the Roo AI extension to work on Flutter apps in YOLO mode and its been pretty cool. The only issue is the model can't interact with the Android Emulator preview. Still trying to figure out a workaround to that, but if anyone has any ideas would love to hear!
lillee3377 2y ago
Well I've used Loveable and now this and his description is right. It is Loveable for mobile apps. Something I've wanted since I found Loveable. It suits my needs and built what I needed. Just waiting for downloads to be implemented. Great work wcynthia.
- jobala 2y ago
  You can now download the project code! And install android apps on your device.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
eggsamurai 2y ago
Just tried it, it's awesome! Great work team! We need the ability to download code asap!
- wcynthia 2y ago
  Thanks! You can now download source code and Android apk builds. iOS builds coming soon
  - lillee3377 2y ago
    Download of APK not working. It's been saying it's building since yesterday. Download of source code works.
    - jobala 2y ago
      Hello, you experienced this bug because we were not updating the status from pending to failed when an error happened during apk building. We are working on improving the experience but in the mean time try getting the src code and building the apk locally.
magundu 2y ago
Good work. Recently I tried rork.app to generate mobile games for my kids. It is really amazing. They also give published URL which we can directly use in the mobile. Is there any significant difference in code generation?
- wcynthia 2y ago
  I am not sure what you mean by difference in code generation.
  - magundu 2y ago
    I mean Flutter, React native or Native code.
    - jobala 2y ago
      This generates Flutter whereas rork generates react native.
joeevans1000 2y ago
Won't sign up with Google or Microsoft, lol. Ever. And just a pro tip for getting other users that won't be bothered by that: after one types in the app idea it goes instantly to a sign up and feels weird. You should tease the user with some output to get them to want to sign up.
- wcynthia 2y ago
  Thanks for the tip!
android521 2y ago
why flutter instead of react native? Flutter is destined to be a dead language because of google
- wcynthia 2y ago
  Flutter is better positioned for our use case.
account-5 2y ago
Like others I never made it passed the login screen. And I see nothing before that that would make me want to hand over an email address.
- wcynthia 2y ago
  It's nothing much, but I just added sample screenshots of apps to the homepage. Plan is to eventually be able to browse through generated app samples interactively
kappuchino 2y ago
Why are the praising accounts green? Am I missing something?
- jjani 2y ago
  It feels like these developers no longer even care about how blatant the sockpuppeting is. Potentially because AI can't tell anyway.
  - kappuchino 2y ago
    Says by a green account. Oh the irony!
    - jjani 2y ago
      Exactly - at least I make the effort to put up a veneer of realism, whereas they're one-day old, single-comment accounts! (/s, though I hope that's not necessary on here :))
vyasaveda 2y ago
Whoever you're, and whenever you're getting the information, you're Miss something. From a business development manager point of view, it's horrible experience. Nobody will pay for you, when you can't assure them it's worth it. There's just a 5 message limit in free plan. How can a man decide whether it's worth it just by 5 text. There are hundreds out there. The finest thing in startups is sales and viable product. I haven't explored it fully, as I won't pay to check someone product, but to stand out, you need to think business development differently. For word of mouth, or initial growth, you have to showcase what's the USP you're providing, along with some proof. And users are the best proofs that you can showcase. If you wanna make just some thousands, then it may work. For a successful startup, it's off track.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
8mobile 2y ago
Hi, I'm trying avid to build a simple app with Pomodoro timer, it seems a bit slow and it's a pity that it accepts authentication only with Google or Microsoft. Anyway, congratulations
- wcynthia 2y ago
  Thanks for your feedback. And for giving Avid a try! I'm not particularly impressed by the speed myself and it's definitely something we're working on
codenote 2y ago
I came across a0.dev the other day, and I think your focus on Flutter specifically is a nice differentiator. I'll try it!
- wcynthia 2y ago
  Nice to hear. Thanks!
pergadad 2y ago
Hmm, I appreciate that there is a cost to generation, but a monthly limit of 100 questions seems quite low for a 20$ plan for hobbyists. How am I going to iterate, make changes etc when I have to keep glancing at the limits to make sure I won't get stuck for this month? It feels a bit like an electric car with 200km range.. fine for staying in the city, and yes you can drive to another city, but if you do you're going to be stressed and thinking about the next charger the whole ride. So similarly I feel if i eree to sign up I'd end up frustrated. Would it not be better for the audience and use case to use a top up model? And might you be able to offer a 5-10 message free plan?
- wcynthia 2y ago
  I totally get what you mean. We do offer 15 free messages for the month, and you can come back the next month for 15 more (capped at 5 a day). The AI generation costs do factor in a lot towards the pricing, among other things like infra. Hopefully with future reduced costs we can offer those savings back to you.
wcynthia 2y ago
EDIT: You can now download source code and Android App builds. iOS apps to follow soon!
lillee3377 2y ago
I haven't been able to download APK. It's been saying it's building it and pending since yesterday. I was able to download the source code though.
- wcynthia 2y ago
  Hey @lillee3377 This was due to an issue on our end where it was not properly updating the status. Should be fixed now

46 points by wcynthia 2y ago

skillwee 2y ago

Sounds promising. What Lovable or Bolt is missing is ability to visually customize the output (like a no-code tool). Imagine if you could combine your AI agent + Flutterflow like No Code abilities? That would be magical.

wcynthia 2y ago
That was the idea from day one. Can't wait to ship that feature
echelon 2y ago
Are Lovable, Bolt, or V0 good? I haven't tried them yet. Are these tools going to replace application designers? How much work can they do, and how much remains to be done by engineers? Can they engineer complicated apps, or do they reproduce simple apps from a training set? (TODO list apps, etc.) Is the code these systems output any good? Maintainable and extensible?
- erikig 2y ago
  They are surprisingly capable given how long they’ve been around and they allow you to eject and fully manage your code via git. I’d say try them out and share your experience.

BJones12 2y ago

You may want to change the name. Avid is also a very well recognized brand, and you won't rank highly for it either in search or in people's brains.

bilalq 2y ago
I feel like these concerns are often overstated. Gemini was a well-known crypto exchange. Outside of their niche, I don't think Avid is something the average person is familiar with. Even the average software engineer.
- Oras 2y ago
  You can’t compare Google to a service just started

hodorwang 2y ago

It seems to be using Vercel to preview the app effect, which is quite interesting.

wcynthia 2y ago
Yes, it provides pretty quick deployments. We just hit the limit a few minutes ago. Had to upgrade
- ZeroCool2u 2y ago
  In Project IDX you can view Flutter Web previews as a tab in VS Code. Have you considered trying some variant of that?
jbirer 2y ago
It's been some time that I worked with React Native, but I think you can use react-native-web to create web previews of the mobile app.

horsawlarway 2y ago

You don't accept a signup that isn't Google or Microsoft. So I guess I won't sign up... You also don't tell me this until I've already written a prompt, which is frustrating.

uncomplexity_ 2y ago
shitiest ux pattern ever

jurassimo 2y ago

[dead]

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago

What all these ai apps have is a certain look. it's like the bootstrap look from the early days. you know the app is being made by somebody who doesn't really care about quality. I think there is going to be a counter reaction towards artisanal apps which will come out of all of this. Just how WordPress runs 70% of the web but it's 70% of the crap web. Similarly AI will maybe create 70% of the apps but it will be 70% of the crap apps. And this is not some sort of reflection on AI. AI is actually great tech, but it's more about the person making the app and the proof of work required to show how much they care about the product. Or in this case these apps will be associated with shady fly-by-night companies trying to sell something.

tracker1 2y ago
I'm going to have to completely disagree on Bootstrap. The use of Bootstrap isn't an indication on a lack of quality, it's an indication on a desire for a decent UI from the start. The fact that it was widely used isn't necessarily reflective of a given app. Bootstrap, Material, etc. are all just established tools in terms of visual usability and consistency. Many people are far more concerned about having something functional over something that looks completely unique or different. Personally, I tend to dislike most UI/UX experiments in terms of usability. Not all, but definitely most are just bad compared to what most people are used to.
BoorishBears 2y ago
I'm like AI and I still agree. It's because models struggle with design, period. They're not great at getting things like margins right and consistent across an entire app while they're trying to follow instructions for a complex design. Similarly they understand contrast if prompted directly, but while they're implementing a complex design they'll tend to still end up making poor contrast choices with tons of default fonts everywhere. - If you iterate more and provide images back to the model, you can start to get something better, but that's tedious and the opposite of what most people using these tools are trying to do. And V0 defaults to the absolutely awful ui/shadcn which is the worst possible idea as AI driven development becomes popular (let's create a UI library with minimal design tokens, no package name, no guarantees on consistency or versioning because you literally cut and paste it and update it by applying diffs.) I'm personally excited to see if larger models with multimodal output will be able to generate detailed coherent UIs, that I can then implement using a copilot for tedious parts. To me that's the ideal flow to get something that doesn't have the "V0 Look"

Oras 2y ago

How about showing some samples created by this app? The landing page is not appealing for an app builder service.

wcynthia 2y ago
Yeah, it's part of our roadmap and will be shipping soon!

CASHforGOLD 2y ago

[dead]

andrewstuart 2y ago

Whenever I check out a new way of making stuff I want lots of working examples that I can actually use - a gallery/showcase. I’m not going to use a new technology just to find out what it looks like. IMO your front page should be minimum 10 examples apps to download.

wcynthia 2y ago
Just added screenshots to the homepage. Not exactly the best showcase, but it's a start. We'll be adding interactive mobile apps to browse through soon

ZeroCool2u 2y ago

This is very cool. I've been using Project IDX and the Roo AI extension to work on Flutter apps in YOLO mode and its been pretty cool. The only issue is the model can't interact with the Android Emulator preview. Still trying to figure out a workaround to that, but if anyone has any ideas would love to hear!

lillee3377 2y ago

Well I've used Loveable and now this and his description is right. It is Loveable for mobile apps. Something I've wanted since I found Loveable. It suits my needs and built what I needed. Just waiting for downloads to be implemented. Great work wcynthia.

jobala 2y ago
You can now download the project code! And install android apps on your device.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

eggsamurai 2y ago

Just tried it, it's awesome! Great work team! We need the ability to download code asap!

wcynthia 2y ago
Thanks! You can now download source code and Android apk builds. iOS builds coming soon
- lillee3377 2y ago
  Download of APK not working. It's been saying it's building since yesterday. Download of source code works.
  - jobala 2y ago
    Hello, you experienced this bug because we were not updating the status from pending to failed when an error happened during apk building. We are working on improving the experience but in the mean time try getting the src code and building the apk locally.

magundu 2y ago

Good work. Recently I tried rork.app to generate mobile games for my kids. It is really amazing. They also give published URL which we can directly use in the mobile. Is there any significant difference in code generation?

wcynthia 2y ago
I am not sure what you mean by difference in code generation.
- magundu 2y ago
  I mean Flutter, React native or Native code.
  - jobala 2y ago
    This generates Flutter whereas rork generates react native.

joeevans1000 2y ago

Won't sign up with Google or Microsoft, lol. Ever. And just a pro tip for getting other users that won't be bothered by that: after one types in the app idea it goes instantly to a sign up and feels weird. You should tease the user with some output to get them to want to sign up.

wcynthia 2y ago
Thanks for the tip!

android521 2y ago

why flutter instead of react native? Flutter is destined to be a dead language because of google

wcynthia 2y ago
Flutter is better positioned for our use case.

account-5 2y ago

Like others I never made it passed the login screen. And I see nothing before that that would make me want to hand over an email address.

wcynthia 2y ago
It's nothing much, but I just added sample screenshots of apps to the homepage. Plan is to eventually be able to browse through generated app samples interactively

kappuchino 2y ago

Why are the praising accounts green? Am I missing something?

jjani 2y ago
It feels like these developers no longer even care about how blatant the sockpuppeting is. Potentially because AI can't tell anyway.
- kappuchino 2y ago
  Says by a green account. Oh the irony!
  - jjani 2y ago
    Exactly - at least I make the effort to put up a veneer of realism, whereas they're one-day old, single-comment accounts! (/s, though I hope that's not necessary on here :))

vyasaveda 2y ago

Whoever you're, and whenever you're getting the information, you're Miss something. From a business development manager point of view, it's horrible experience. Nobody will pay for you, when you can't assure them it's worth it. There's just a 5 message limit in free plan. How can a man decide whether it's worth it just by 5 text. There are hundreds out there. The finest thing in startups is sales and viable product. I haven't explored it fully, as I won't pay to check someone product, but to stand out, you need to think business development differently. For word of mouth, or initial growth, you have to showcase what's the USP you're providing, along with some proof. And users are the best proofs that you can showcase. If you wanna make just some thousands, then it may work. For a successful startup, it's off track.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

8mobile 2y ago

Hi, I'm trying avid to build a simple app with Pomodoro timer, it seems a bit slow and it's a pity that it accepts authentication only with Google or Microsoft. Anyway, congratulations

wcynthia 2y ago
Thanks for your feedback. And for giving Avid a try! I'm not particularly impressed by the speed myself and it's definitely something we're working on

codenote 2y ago

I came across a0.dev the other day, and I think your focus on Flutter specifically is a nice differentiator. I'll try it!

wcynthia 2y ago
Nice to hear. Thanks!

pergadad 2y ago

Hmm, I appreciate that there is a cost to generation, but a monthly limit of 100 questions seems quite low for a 20$ plan for hobbyists. How am I going to iterate, make changes etc when I have to keep glancing at the limits to make sure I won't get stuck for this month? It feels a bit like an electric car with 200km range.. fine for staying in the city, and yes you can drive to another city, but if you do you're going to be stressed and thinking about the next charger the whole ride. So similarly I feel if i eree to sign up I'd end up frustrated. Would it not be better for the audience and use case to use a top up model? And might you be able to offer a 5-10 message free plan?

wcynthia 2y ago
I totally get what you mean. We do offer 15 free messages for the month, and you can come back the next month for 15 more (capped at 5 a day). The AI generation costs do factor in a lot towards the pricing, among other things like infra. Hopefully with future reduced costs we can offer those savings back to you.

wcynthia 2y ago

EDIT: You can now download source code and Android App builds. iOS apps to follow soon!

lillee3377 2y ago

I haven't been able to download APK. It's been saying it's building it and pending since yesterday. I was able to download the source code though.

wcynthia 2y ago
Hey @lillee3377 This was due to an issue on our end where it was not properly updating the status. Should be fixed now