CI/CD for Mobile Apps Part 1/3 - Know Where Our Code Lives (Web vs Mobile Explained)

After a few days of working on CI/CD pipelines for mobile apps enabling OTA ("Over the Air" updates), I realised a few details that feels like just simple settings, but actually are resulted from a complete different underlying model which mobile apps operated under. Where the Code Resides Web apps: The Single Source of Truth For web development, the code lives on the server, with the exception of browser cache where the code did not change from the last time. This means the newer code we pushed will always show up for the users, and every user will have the latest changes. Mobile apps: Distributed Binaries Mobile apps, however, the code is compiled into binary and downloaded onto users' phones. The server just hosts the backend services like APIs, user management, and database queries and storage. When a new update is available (eg layout change, new camera features) the users must "download" it, else they stay on the old version. The Analogy So web apps are like electronic billboards