Make an app
Make an appointment booking app for your small business
A booking app lets customers pick a service and a free time without calling you. Describe your services and opening hours and Borel builds a native iPhone app in Swift with customer sign-in, open slots that can't be double-booked, a day view for you and your staff, and a reminder on the customer's phone before each visit.
Updated
“A booking app for my hair salon: services with a name, length and price; opening hours per weekday; customers sign in, pick a service, a stylist and a free slot, and get a reminder the day before. A slot can only be booked once. Staff see a day view of their bookings and can cancel or move one.”
Screens
What an appointment booking app needs
The screens Borel builds from the prompt above. Ask for more, fewer or different ones.
Services
What you offer, with length and price, and the next free time for each.
Pick a time
A week of open slots for the chosen service and stylist; taken ones never show.
My bookings
The customer's upcoming visits, with cancel and add-to-calendar buttons.
Staff day
Each stylist's bookings for the day, with the customer's name and service.
Data
What it keeps
Borel writes these as Swift models. On the phone they work with no connection; in Borel's cloud they follow a signed-in person.
| What | Holds | Kept |
|---|---|---|
| Service | Name, minutes, price, description | In Borel's cloud, read by everyone |
| Staff member | Name, photo, working hours | In Borel's cloud |
| Booking | Service, staff, start time, customer | In Borel's cloud, guarded so a slot is booked once |
| Customer | Email, name, phone | In Borel's cloud, with sign-in |
Native iPhone features
What it can use on your iPhone
Written in Swift with Apple's own frameworks, so they work the way iPhone owners expect.
Make it yours
What to ask for next
Once the first version runs, ask for changes in the chat, in words like these.
- “Add a 15-minute gap after each appointment for cleaning up.”
- “Let customers join a waiting list for a fully booked day.”
- “Close the calendar on public holidays I pick.”
- “Show staff a week view as well as the day.”
How to make it
From a prompt to your iPhone and the App Store
- 1
Describe it
Paste the prompt on this page into Borel, or write your own in plain words. Borel plans the screens with you before it builds.
- 2
Try it in your browser
Borel writes the app in Swift and SwiftUI, builds it with Xcode on its own Mac and opens it in a live iPhone simulator in your browser, free.
- 3
Put it on your iPhone
With Pro, Borel Companion for Windows or Mac installs it on your own iPhone with your Apple ID: a cable the first time, then Wi-Fi.
- 4
Publish it when it's ready
Pro publishes to the App Store from the same project. Apple's Developer Program, $99 a year, is the one thing you pay Apple.
Book yourself on your iPhone as a customer would, from sign-in to the reminder the day before. Then switch to the staff view and move the booking. Try booking the same slot twice from two accounts; the second should be refused.
Your customers download a booking app from the App Store, so this one is meant to be published: Pro and Apple's Developer Program, with Borel adding the account deletion and privacy rows Apple checks for. Read publishing from Windows for the steps.
Building starts free, with 5 free credits a day, up to 30 a month, and the simulator in your browser costs nothing. Pro, from $20 a month, adds installs on your own iPhone through Borel Companion and publishing to the App Store.
Before you start
Good to know
- Customers don't pay in the app: Apple's In-App Purchase is for digital things, so deposits and payments for a haircut happen in the salon.
- There are no push notifications to staff when a new booking arrives; the day view shows it when opened.
- It doesn't sync with Google Calendar or another booking system.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Describe your services, hours and staff, and Borel builds the app in Swift with sign-in and bookings in its own cloud.
From the App Store, once you publish it with Pro and Apple's Developer Program.
No. Borel books each slot through a check in its cloud that refuses a second booking for the same time.
No. Borel runs the cloud, the database and sign-in for your app.
Make your appointment booking app
Start from the prompt on this page, change it to fit your idea, and Borel builds it while you watch.