Six Patterns to Share in Mobile Apps without the Cloud
An interesting observation I've had while building Local-Only+P2PDA mobile apps is discovering a different approach to sharing - one based on local trust rather than account creation and going through platforms.
I was recently at a friend's house when their spouse wanted to send an auto insurance PDF to their phone. What seemed like a simple task highlighted how we've normalized unnecessary complexity: email the file, refresh the inbox waiting for it to appear, rely on search to find it later, all for sharing a document between two people sitting in the same room.
This got me thinking about proximity-based sharing scenarios where the traditional cloud approach feels overengineered. I've put together six sharing patterns that work entirely through local device connections, where trust is established directly between people rather than mediated through platforms.
I'll explore app examples that show how different Jobs to be Done can be addressed using local trust versus cloud-based sharing.
Pictures
We can all relate to the multiple ways in which we can share photos using text messaging, email, Dropbox, Facebook, or Snapchat. These options all require an internet connection and the cloud, enabling the Job to be Done, "share photos with family and friends." Now, if your family and friends aren't with you at the event, all of these options provide a solution that couldn't exist without the internet and cloud-based services.
But what if the people you want to share with are physically located at the same event? Although we still want to "share photos with family and friends," cloud-based solutions feel clunky in this context. Why? These solutions were designed for people separated by distance, not gathered together.
If we look at sharing photos from a Local-Only+P2PDA perspective, our unique opportunities center around:
- Connecting directly with devices nearby, eliminating the cloud
- Your phone is your source of truth
I propose a photo-sharing app with two features: First, family and friends can share photos they've snapped with a single host. Second, everyone can view all of the photos sent to the host and choose which ones to save locally. This app creates a centralized photo-sharing system, locally for the people at the event.
The Interactive sharing pattern enables peers to share pictures with the host in real-time. In contrast, the Showcase pattern enables the curation of photos, allowing everyone at the event to choose which photos to transfer to their phone. Try doing this with one of your go-to cloud-based apps with a group of ten people.
What about when you return home after the event and want to share photos with a family member or friend? If you both use the photo app and have established trust, the Distributed Trust pattern would allow you to send photos directly to each other. Think of this as AirDrop, but just for photos inside this photo-sharing app, without the complexity that comes with getting AirDrop to work reliably.
Is this a cloud-only versus Local-Only+P2PDA debate? I don't see it this way. I see room for both, even in the same app or personal workflow.
Let's add the ability for our photo-sharing app to export a photo or group of photos. By utilizing the iOS Share Sheet, we can seamlessly integrate our app with other cloud-based services, which is precisely what you do when you pick a photo to share from Apple's Photos app. Now our photo-sharing app works alongside cloud-based counterparts when we need to share with people who are distant. We're not solely competing with cloud services—we're complementing each other.
Bookmarks
When I reflect on how I manage my browser bookmarks today, the first thing that comes to mind is how I have different bookmarks on different devices. Whatever device I was on at the time, that is where I saved the bookmark. Syncing bookmarks across devices has been solved by various services, both free and paid. But what would managing bookmarks look like using the Local-Only+P2PDA philosophy?
All of my bookmarks would be stored in a database on my iPhone as the device authority (single source of truth)—no cloud required.
The Personal share pattern would allow me to connect my MacBook (or iPad) to my phone as a delegate. Think of it this way: instead of my MacBook connecting to the cloud to access my bookmarks, it connects directly to my iPhone over a local peer-to-peer connection. My iPhone becomes the server to the MacBook, allowing it to have a different User Interface that is more aligned with the Jobs to be Done on a laptop, given the larger screen size compared to the smaller iPhone screen.
When it comes to other jobs, you can create a bookmark collection and share using the Showcase pattern, send a bookmark to someone nearby using the Distributed Trust pattern, and export your bookmarks when you need to share your bookmarks with cloud-based apps.
These local sharing patterns present an opportunity to define a new category of mobile apps. By sharing locally, combined with device authority, mobile apps can be created that do not require logins or cloud storage, giving users complete control over their data.