A year ago I published a blog post discussing an adjustment in our approach towards our mobile apps. Having just released a long-awaited feature to the mobile apps on iOS and Android for splitting transactions, as well as recently released a user interface overhaul, it’s now a good time to reflect on this post and provide an update on our current thinking around mobile.
First we’ll discuss what’s different now from what we talked about in the blog post last year, then talk about the things that have stayed the same.
The differences revolve around the fourth section of the blog post, where we discussed our future plans for mobile. Everything else in the blog post remains true.
Then: We will end up removing PocketSmith Sidekick from the app stores.
Now: We’ll be maintaining and enhancing PocketSmith Sidekick, ongoing.
PocketSmith Sidekick will continue to exist in the app stores. Certain on-the-go workflows work better within a native mobile app: categorising some transactions, taking a photo of a receipt, or checking budgets while you’re shopping.
Also, performance of a native application is nearly always going to feel snappier than a web-based application on mobile. Unless a web app is built from the ground up to be very lightweight and mobile-oriented — which would allow it to operate extremely well on in a phone’s browser — then the experience is never going to be as smooth as a native app.
And while this sort of ground-up rearchitecture might get us most of the way there, it would likely lead to some worse outcomes for the full desktop experience.
Then: We won’t be adding Advisor Access for the PocketSmith Sidekick apps, due to difficulties in the security model.
Now: We’ve cracked the security side of things, so we’ll be figuring out Advisor Access for the mobile apps.
Advisor Access on the mobile apps is frequently requested by many users. In the mobile apps, Advisor Access is desired primarily by couples in one household who want to share a single PocketSmith account with one another.
As PocketSmith Sidekick will continue into the future, this is something that we will solve in the coming year.
With these key differences discussed, I wanted to address the things that stay exactly the same and briefly mention the progress that we’ve made this year on these items.
Then: Make PocketSmith entirely mobile responsive, end-to-end.
Now: The quest continues, and we’ve had big wins in this area.
With the new user interface update released last month, a huge number of improvements have been made in this area, progressing us towards being completely mobile responsive.
The sidebar collapses into a bottom tray menu on mobile, and the Transactions page and other pages throughout the web app have been tweaked in order to display and work well on mobile. All settings modals now display correctly on mobile, and are fully accessible on smaller screens.
We still have a bit to go here — some features such as the Calendar need to be rebuilt to be accommodated on smaller screens (an upgrade we’re particularly looking forward to, as it’ll mean we can finally introduce alternative calendar views). We also need to focus on general improvements for small phone screens in particular. Regardless, 2025 has seen us make significant headway in this area.
Then: Start a new PocketSmith native app, wrapping the now-responsive web app.
Now: We’ll still be creating a new mobile app, wrapping the web app.
When exactly this new app will be added to the the app stores is unclear, however this is still our plan. Progress comes down to the significant list of things that we need to solve in order to make the web app fully mobile responsive.
However, the key point is that this new PocketSmith app will sit alongside the fully native PocketSmith Sidekick apps, in the app stores — and will not be replacing it.
A native mobile app can allow for a more fluid experience than the web for some specific workflows: categorising a few transactions on the move, quickly snapping receipts, checking up on a specific budget while shopping, and more.
It’s for this reason that we’ve shifted our position over the past 12 months; softening on our stance on the PocketSmith Sidekick app, and looking to give it a brighter future.
So alongside continued improvements to the web app (2026 is shaping up to be a very big year), we’re also going to be honing in on what the key experiences should be in the PocketSmith Sidekick app, as well as solving oft-requested features like Advisor Access on mobile and improving date selection for budget analysis.
Thank you to all our customers for a wonderful 2025, we look forward to sharing more updates with you in 2026. Hope you have a relaxing break over the New Year period!
James is the CTO and co-founder at PocketSmith. He loves tech from software to hardware to music, and is passionate about technology being a net-positive in people’s lives. He lives off-grid with three humans, one axolotl, one dog, and too many possums.
