Install WIMM as a Mobile App (iPhone and Android)

WIMM is a Progressive Web App (PWA). That means you can install it directly from your phone's browser onto your home screen, where it opens fullscreen — no browser chrome, no address bar, behaving exactly like a native app. No app store visit, no 30% fee, no separate download.

Here's how, on each platform.

On iPhone (Safari)

1. Open app.wimm.money in Safari (must be Safari, not Chrome or another browser).
2. Sign in to your WIMM account.
3. Tap the Share button at the bottom (the square-with-up-arrow icon).
4. Scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen.
5. Confirm the name "WIMM" and tap Add.

That's it. The WIMM icon now lives on your home screen. Tapping it opens WIMM directly, with no browser UI.

On Android (Chrome)

1. Open app.wimm.money in Chrome.
2. Sign in to your WIMM account.
3. Chrome detects the PWA automatically — you'll see an "Install WIMM as an app" pill in the bottom-right corner. Tap it.
4. Confirm the install dialog.

If you don't see the pill, tap the ⋮ menu in the top-right and choose Install app or Add to Home Screen.

What "installed" actually gets you

• A home screen icon that opens WIMM fullscreen.
• Faster loads — the service worker caches the app shell, so the first paint after install is near-instant even on flaky networks.
• Offline tolerance — you can still browse already-loaded budgets and transactions when your connection drops.
• Native-feeling navigation — a bottom nav appears on mobile with one-tap access to Dashboard, Transactions, Budgets, and More.

What's missing vs. a "real" native app

Honest answer: app store presence and native push notifications. We deliberately chose the PWA route because (a) we're a small indie team, (b) app stores take 30%, and (c) every modern phone supports installable PWAs in 2026. Native iOS/Android apps via Capacitor are on the roadmap for late 2026 if usage data shows demand.

Why this is the better default

The marketing line about "native app required" is mostly a holdover from the 2015 mobile-app gold rush. In 2026, PWAs render and behave identically to native apps for finance-tracker workloads — no animations or hardware features that require native code. The trade-off (no app store discovery) is acceptable when the cost (slower release cadence, app-store fees, separate codebase) is so high for a small indie team.