If you haven’t heard yet, there’s a new buzzword in town: Vibe coding. It is a new AI approach where developers let the AI take the lead, going with the flow rather than manually writing every line of code. In today’s article, we’ll explore some of the best Vibe coding tools for mobile development. Ready to watch AI take over your job? Let’s dive in.
This is just me exploring some of the AI tools. By now, everyone knows that the best framework for building cross-platform applications is Expo, and that’s why these tools rely on it as their foundation. But keep in mind, if you have zero programming experience, you might struggle, especially with complex apps.
The Vibe Coding Tools
Here are the websites of the vibe coding tools that we are going to use:
- Bolt: A great tool with a really cool integration with Expo.
- Replit: Another popular choice for AI-powered development.
- a.dev: A tool specifically for mobile apps that relies on Expo.
- Appella: Features a cool website for creating mobile apps.
- work.app: For mobile apps that use Expo as well.
- makeway.dev: The final tool we’ll be checking out.
If you have another AI application, just let me know in the comments; I’ll make sure to check it out.
The Challenge: Building Simple Apps
For this article, I thought I would create a simple app for each AI tool. I expect that these AI tools will allow me to use Expo Go, an application that allows you to test these applications. If you don’t have it, just go to the App Store or Play Store and search for “Expo Go.”
I have five apps that I want to create. These are simple apps that I think the AI should handle pretty well and fast. I actually had ChatGPT create these simple app ideas.
Here are the five apps I want to build:
- Emoji Mood Logger: A simple app to log your mood.
- Bounce Tap Game: A game to test your reflexes.
- Magic 8-Ball Fortune Teller: Shake the phone to get a fortune.
- Tap to Change Color Game: A simple color-changing app.
- GIF Finder: An app to find GIFs based on your mood.
Let’s go ahead and start with bolt.new.
1. Bolt.new: Emoji Mood Logger
Let’s copy the first idea. The prompt is:
Create an app. Tap an emoji to log your mood for the day and then show a simple history of the past moods. Fun UI animations when selecting an emoji.
This is a cool app that I can see in the App Stores now. One thing that I really like about bolt.new is that they have an “enhanced prompt” button that is going to take my very bad prompt and make it super cool. All this is before I can actually hit the send or the submit button.
Here’s what it came up with:
App Name: Emoji Mood Logger App
Core Features:
- Daily Mood Tracking: Single-tap mood selection.
- Chronological Mood History: Display showing the last 30 days.
User Interface Requirements:
- Cool, clean, minimalist design.
- Large emoji buttons.
Interactive Elements:
- Implement engaging animations.
Technical Specifications:
- Local storage for mood history.
- Daily reminder notifications.
Design Guidelines:
- …
This is pretty complex since notifications require native functionality. Let’s just go ahead and press the send button. This is going to start creating my application. This is throwing a lot of code; if you are not familiar with this code, that’s totally fine. You don’t need to know coding when you are Vibe coding.
This is cool. This is actually creating some files. We can see an overview of what Bolt is doing: initializing the package with the dependencies that this application is going to need, and it’s fairly fast. It created some layouts with tabs and it’s actually creating some utility functions, I’m guessing for saving stuff and dealing with the local storage.
And it’s done. We have a summary of what it did, and on the right, I have this QR code that I can scan with my iPhone. Just make sure that you have Expo Go, as I said before. I’m going to open my camera app and then scan this QR code and just open this in Expo Go.
Cool, so this is loading. Awesome, and this looks amazing, right? “How are you feeling today?” I’m actually going to take a screenshot because this looks amazing. Today, I’m actually feeling happy. I’m going to select this feeling. Oh wow, did you see that animation? Wow. “Saturday, March 8th.” Cool. So let’s see the history. Oh my goodness. Cool.
Let’s say that now I’m feeling overwhelmed by AI taking my job. Okay, I’m pressing this button. I can see the really cool animation, but if I go to the history, it’s actually not showing and it’s not doing anything. Maybe it’s because I already had a record before, but wow, I’m super impressed. I really like the UI.
If we come to the website again, I can press this close button, and this is actually going to show me a web view of how this looks. From here, you can actually select things, come here, and see the results. Of course, this is not going to look as great as checking it out on Expo Go, so I would highly recommend using Expo Go. But you can also switch for a Pixel, for example, responsive, which at the end of the day would be like a website view, and this is how it looks.
I think this is a good taste of what you can do with Bolt. Of course, you can just come here and prompt it again to fix anything that you want to fix or change anything that you want to change. I would say you can just do like three or four more prompts and you should be able to ship this application.
2. Replit: Bounce Tap Game
Okay, so let’s move on to the next app that we are going to make, which is going to be a bounce tap game. Bounce means, you know, that this is going to be a fairly complex application, at least for a human. For this job, I want to test Replit. The goal is to see how fast you can make the ball go before losing track of it. It sounds pretty complex to do, honestly.
Let’s go ahead and improve this with the “improve prompt” that we can see here as well. Now, if you notice, it changed this to be a “web-based arcade-style game,” and I want an application. So I’m going to say specifically, “an Expo app.” Let’s see if this can handle it. The core features are that the ball continuously bounces, and then virtual references. Okay, and it’s also providing a style guide, which is cool.
Okay, so let’s just go ahead and start building this application. This is how Replit looks, by the way. They also have an application in case you want to try it out. It’s an app created with Expo, by the way, and you can actually do these prompts from your phone, which is cool.
One thing to notice is that Replit is actually asking me for approval before it actually goes and creates the application. And it’s telling me again that it’s going to build this using HTML5. So once again, I’m going to try and use React Native for this. “Please use React Native with Expo.” Oh no, it’s apologizing because React Native is not supported in the environment. I guess we’ll have to just continue with these changes. Hopefully, it’s going to be web-optimized. So I’m just going to approve these changes and see what happens.
To be fair with the AI, I also think that this application was fairly complex to do in React Native, but let’s see what it comes up with. Definitely, Replit feels more robust with confirming what you want to do and kind of getting things right before it actually starts doing stuff. I think that’s cool.
Now I can see that it’s installing dependencies. Boom, and it’s ready. We have this “show output” button, and this is going to bring the result, which looks pretty nice. And I’m going to try to click. Okay, and it has sound effects, which is cool. And then I can hit it again, and then again. This is hard, by the way, and I’m using a trackpad, so this is hard. This is cool. Okay, come on. Okay, and basically, it’s doing what I told it to do. Now it’s really hard to hit the ball. Oh, I did it again. Nice.
So it didn’t create the app, but it came up with the result and met the expectations. So it’s nice. I’m pretty sure that you can create an app with Replit.
3. a.dev: Magic 8-Ball Fortune Teller
Okay, guys, so for some reason, Replit didn’t create the application, but it came up with a website, which is nice. Now let’s move on to the next one, which is going to be a Magic 8-Ball fortune teller.
User shakes or taps the screen. AI randomly picks from a set of pre-written responses. Cool animations and sound effects.
Cool. So let’s go back now to a.dev. This is a new one. As you notice, I don’t have an account, so hopefully, they won’t ask me to create an account. I don’t have a prompt enhancer here, so I’m guessing that as soon as I press submit, this is going to ask me to create an account, maybe. Okay, and it’s not asking me; it’s just doing it. Cool. So let’s see what it comes up with.
Okay, so what happened is that my prompt is empty for some reason. So I’m just going to paste it again, and I want to say, “create an Expo app game,” and then submit again. Okay, now the text is in there, but I see an error right away. Maybe I need to create an account.
Okay, I have created an account. I’m going to submit this again. My prompt is empty, so there’s no way to stop the AI. I’m going to paste again my prompt. So I’m going to say, “create an Expo app game,” and then paste that and submit. “Something went wrong. Something went wrong.” Okay, let’s try this with a new chat.
Okay, so I created a new chat. It looks like this time it’s working. Okay, so it’s telling me that it’s done, but it looks like we have an error. So I’m just going to copy the error and paste it in the chat and send it again. I’m going to click on “accept changes.”
Okay, so that was kind of weird, but now I can see it. Oh, nice. And I can make this bigger. So if I press the thing, I can see my fortune, but I just see “8” all the time. Is that my fortune?
So I want to test this on my phone. I’m going to scan this QR code. It’s going to take me to the App Store to download this application. Okay, and let me sign in. Okay, so now I can press “I have the app.” So I think this “Untitled” app is my current app. I’m going to allow. Okay, cool. And I have the app running on my device. So let me see if I can shake it. Okay, and it actually has haptics, which is really cool. You guys cannot see that, but I can reload the app when I shake it. Okay, and every time that I shake the device, I feel the haptics, which is really cool. Okay, cool. This got me excited.
So same as the other tools, for example, you can check out the code in here or download the project. So I’m going to tell the AI:
The ball always shows the number 8. Please create hardcoded fortunes to display.
So I’m going to send and see what happens. Okay, I’m going to accept the changes. Now it looks a bit different on the web preview. I’m going to check my device and reload the app. Okay, cool. So if I press the 8… So I said:
After shaking, I don’t see the response on screen.
Now the AI is saying, “Okay, I see the issue.” I’m going to accept the changes and then reload my app.
Okay, guys, I tried to fix it, but it looks like it’s actually very messy, and I wasn’t able to do it. But so far, I think it has a really cool animation. It didn’t show the fortune, but yeah, I think it’s a good time to move on to the next one.
4. Appella: Color Changer & Magic 8-Ball
Okay, now we get to Appella. Let’s go ahead and just paste my prompt in here. I’ll say:
Create an Expo app, “Tap to Change Color” game. Tap the screen, the app changes the color randomly, displays the color hex code, and adds a font score.
So this is a fairly simple app, I would say. I’m just going to send this, and it’s asking me to create an account, so I’ll just go ahead and do that. Okay, let’s start building.
Okay, so the first thing that I noticed is that the prompt is very small down here, so I’m just going to send this directly. I didn’t see a button to improve my prompt, but the AI is working, so this is nice. Okay, and it’s done. So let’s see what it came up with. I’m going to click on the phone preview, and yeah, this is using Expo. Let me just go ahead and scan this QR code, and this should connect.
All right, in my phone, it looks better. So what I can do is just tap this screen, and this is going to generate a new color, and it’s going to show me the hex, which is really nice. This is a fairly simple application, I would say. Maybe it’s not fair to the other AIs that I asked for more complex stuff, but I’m super happy with this result, and it just works, which is something that I like.
Now, since we couldn’t make the Magic 8-Ball application that I really wanted, let’s see if Appella can handle this. I’m just going to paste this in here and say again, “create an Expo app,” hit enter. Okay, it’s doing it. Something to notice, guys, is that these AI tools are always adding sound effects, which is really nice. Yeah, I’m not sure if this is actually going to work, guys, because, you know, I don’t know where this is taking the audio from. I’m just going to shake my device and reload and see what happens.
Yeah, okay, looks super nice on my phone. Let’s press shaking. Ah, it works! Oh my gosh! Now, at this point, guys, I actually want to ship this application. Let me know in the comments if you want me to show you how you can send this application to the App Store, Play Store, and web because actually, Expo apps work on the web as well, in case you didn’t know.
“Concentrate and ask again.” Okay, is this article going to get more than a thousand views? “It is certain.” Whoa! Okay, Appella is good. Let’s move on to the next one.
5. Roor: GIF Finder
Okay, the last one is actually, I would say, fairly complex because you have to display the GIF.
Users select a situation (excited, bored), and then the app shows a fun GIF from a hardcoded list.
Okay, cool. So “hardcoded” is always good, especially for early development, and then you can integrate an API if you want to. So let’s go to Roor, which is our next target AI tool, and let’s say, “create an Expo app.” And this is actually a fairly simple prompt. Let’s see. So I’m just going to create an account and send my prompt.
Okay, so this is how the website looks like. It’s actually very similar to the ones that we’ve seen before, but I actually like this design, super black and white. I like that kind of style. And same thing, guys, we can see the overview of what the AI is going to do. And in this case, Roor is actually improving my prompt by telling me the structure of the application and the features. Right, okay, cool, cool. This is actually creating stuff, but the simulator just crashed the preview. Yeah, so looks like we have a small issue. Don’t worry. And it looks like I’m not able to focus the input. I’m just going to reload the website, and it looks like I lost my progress.
So I’m going to try this again, and in this case, I’m going to say, “don’t use dark mode,” just to make sure that it’s not going to have the same issue. Let’s see what it comes up with. Okay, so I can see that this time it’s actually creating more files. I’m not sure if it actually was loading before. Maybe it was loading, and I just refreshed everything, didn’t let it finish. Let’s go ahead and inspect the code and see if we can see how this is creating the code. It’s actually creating the GIFDisplay.tsx, which is this file here. Okay, and this is how it looks. It’s creating stuff.
Okay, guys, and it looks like this time it’s going to work. Let’s see the preview. I’m actually going to go ahead and scan this QR code. Yeah, so I have Expo Go, so I can just scan this QR code. So this is actually not loading on the preview. Let’s see if this works on my real device.
Nice! Wow, this looks amazing, and we have a nice animation. So let me just reload the application so you can see. Check this out. Wow. So let’s select one of these. Nice. This is awesome, guys. The share button is not working. I can like, yeah, it’s not working as well. Okay, let’s go back. Let’s search. So I can search between these categories. So let’s say “confused.” Nice. This is great. I can go home, and I can also see the recently viewed, which is really nice. And if you notice, guys, we have these really cool animations. Let’s see the “bored,” “happy dance” again. Let’s see the “angry.” This is cool. Nice. So this is working amazingly. So I’m actually surprised with Roor.
6. Makeway: The Final Test
Now we don’t have any more app ideas, but maybe we can try to recreate some of the ones that we created before. Let’s go to the Makeway app. So Makeway is the last tool that we’re going to be testing out today. So I’m going to say, “create an Expo app,” and then just generate. Yeah, I need to create an account.
Okay, and now it looks like it’s doing it, initializing the project. Now this is a bit different. In this case, it’s actually using Expo Snack, which is a tool from Expo that allows you to create apps online, but it’s connecting AI to it, which is, you know, cool. So as usual, we can also see the progress and things that the AI is doing.
So it looks like this AI is stuck. So I’m going to just try to say, “yes, please continue,” and maybe I can just send this. Let’s see if we go to the preview. It’s updating the app, and it’s not letting me see the code, right? But it’s doing stuff. Yeah, so we are having some issues with this AI. I’m just going to use my last prompt and see if we can get it fixed. I only had three prompts with the free tier, and it didn’t fix the issue, guys, and I’m out of credits. But we can save our snack. So if I press this button, this is going to take me to Expo Snack. This is how it looks. Of course, this is not working, so I don’t want to save it. I’m just going to close this.
Conclusion
And that’s a wrap. We put AI to the test with some fun, simple applications. No backend, no API, no fancy stuff, just pure Vibe coding. Some tools handled it well, others not so much. Let me know in the comments what you think about these AI tools, guys. And if you have a recommendation that I should try, just let me know in the comments as well. If you want me to create an article showing you how to deploy your AI-created application, let me know in the comments as well. If you enjoyed this article, don’t forget to give it a like and subscribe.