Getting the app

Maelo has a real app for iPhone and Android, and it is the version you want in the studio: it can buzz your phone when a request comes in, and on iPhone it can take a card payment without a reader.

The app is in testing rather than on the public App Store or Google Play, so you do not search for it. You get an invite from us. Ask at support and tell us whether you are on iPhone or Android, and we will send it to the email address on your account. On iPhone the invite comes through Apple's TestFlight app, on Android it is a link that opens the Play Store.

Sign in with the same email and password you use on the website. Nothing is separate: your requests, clients, calendar and settings are the same account seen from a different screen, and a change you make on your phone shows up on your desktop straight away.

If you use a sign-in link instead of a password, tap the link in the email on the same phone. It opens the app directly and signs you in, rather than dropping you into a browser window.

Three things only exist once the app is installed, because they need the phone itself rather than a web page.

• •Push notifications. A new request or a paid deposit can reach you without you opening anything. See push notifications.
• •Tap to Pay on iPhone. Take contactless cards and digital wallets on the phone in your hand, with no card reader to carry or charge. Set it up in Payments, Tap to Pay.
• •Your camera roll. Reference photos, flash designs and healed shots upload straight from the phone that took them.

The layout is the same as the desktop app with the navigation tucked away. Tap the menu at the top left to move between your dashboard, requests, calendar, clients, messages and settings.

Screens that are dense on a desktop are rebuilt rather than shrunk. Requests become a scrollable stack of cards, the calendar gives you a day at a time, and Settings becomes a grid you tap into rather than a row of tabs.

Updates arrive the same way as any other app on your phone, through TestFlight or the Play Store. If something in the app looks out of date compared to the website, updating is the first thing to try.

Your version number sits at the very bottom of Account, Account Info, along with the phone you are on. It is only shown in the app, because there is no version to show on the web.