Exercise: The Mobile Glossary and Decision Guide

Build the mental model

Every chapter in this course answered a different kind of question. Put together, they're not meant to be memorized as isolated facts — they work together as a routing table you consult whenever a real decision shows up.

• Foundations & Framework Choice -> which development approach fits this team and app?
• Navigation & Device & Data -> how do screens, permissions, and offline data fit together?
• Auth & Notifications -> how do users sign in, and how do we reach them after they leave?
• Build & Store & Production -> how does a build actually reach a real store, safely?

The actual skill this closing lesson checks is routing: given a short, messy description of a situation, can you tell which part of this course applies? That's more realistic than reciting definitions, because nobody hands you a labeled question on a real team — you get a paragraph in a planning doc, and the first job is figuring out which mental model even applies.

This lesson closes with three mixed scenarios, a full glossary of every term this course introduced, and a one-page Mobile App Decision Guide collecting the course's recurring recommendations in one place.

COURSE MAP: SCENARIO TO CHAPTER
-------------------------------
COURSE MAP: SCENARIO TO CHAPTER
--------------------------------
"What should we build with?"
    -> Foundations & Framework Choice

"How do screens, permissions, and
 offline data fit together?"
    -> Navigation & Device & Data

"How do users sign in, and how do
 we reach them after they leave?"
    -> Auth & Notifications

"How do we ship a real release?"
    -> Build & Store & Production

Connect it to a real scenario

Here's how the routing works for the three scenarios in this lesson's exercise, one at a time.

Notice Navigation & Device & Data didn't come up this time. That's normal — not every scenario touches every chapter, and part of routing well is recognizing which chapters don't apply.

• This course's chapters work together as a routing table: the real skill is recognizing which chapter a messy real-world situation belongs to, not memorizing facts in isolation.
• The glossary and Mobile App Decision Guide below are references to return to on your next project, not a one-time read.
• Most real scenarios only touch one or two chapters at a time — learning to recognize which chapters don't apply is as useful as recognizing which ones do.

Try the working example

function routeScenarioToChapter(scenarioCategory) {
  const routingTable = {
    "choosing-approach": {
      chapter: "Foundations & Framework Choice",
      why: "Deciding between native, cross-platform, hybrid, or Expo depends on team skills and app needs."
    },
    "navigation-and-data": {
      chapter: "Navigation & Device & Data",
      why: "Covers stack navigation, deep links, device permissions, and offline data / conflict resolution."
    },
    "auth-and-notifications": {
      chapter: "Auth & Notifications",
      why: "Covers token storage, OAuth mobile flow, and push vs local notifications."
    },
    "store-release": {
      chapter: "Build & Store & Production",
      why: "Covers app signing, APK/AAB builds, store submission, staged rollouts, and crash monitoring."
    }
  };

  return routingTable[scenarioCategory] || {
    chapter: "not found",
    why: "This scenario category doesn't match a chapter in this course."
  };
}

const scenarios = [
  "choosing-approach",
  "auth-and-notifications",
  "store-release",
  "marketing-budget"
];

for (const scenario of scenarios) {
  const result = routeScenarioToChapter(scenario);
  console.log(scenario, "->", result.chapter + " (" + result.why + ")");
}

For the three matching scenario categories, the function returns the chapter and reason from the routing table: choosing-approach -> Foundations & Framework Choice, auth-and-notifications -> Auth & Notifications, store-release -> Build & Store & Production. The fourth call, marketing-budget, isn't in the table, so it falls through to the default: chapter "not found" — a reminder that not every real situation maps onto this course.

Apple App Store Review Guidelines — How Mobile Apps Work

Mobile App Glossary — Common Terms

Mobile App Decision Guide