I’ve spent a year with Coda… its features were more appealing to me than Notion’s and the app gradually became engrained in my work flow. I still love everything about the web-based application, but I’ll probably switch to another platform because the iPhone app is so terrible. Try copying and pasting text. It doesn’t behave like you’d expect on an iPhone… it’ll take you 5 minutes to copy a few paragraphs if you have to scroll. Every time I open the app, it takes me to the beginning and I’ll spend 2 minutes waiting for the menus to load as I seek through my menus to find the document I was working on 5 minutes ago. Editing a doc is so clunky. Seriously, Apple’s Notes app is about 10x more usable than this app. It’s just such a shame, since the web based app offers so much functionality. But it’s 2025. I need to use work apps like this at work, on planes, during travel, or even in bed in the middle of the night.

This is tough because I really love Coda. I’ve been using it daily for years (on my laptop) and have been a paid subscriber for a couple years now. So I’m definitely rooting for them! But the user experience of the iPhone app consistently gets in the way of it being great. I’ve built docs for other people to use several times (and in doing so have onboarded a ton of new users), but they always complain because they can’t get it to work properly on their phone when they need it - which is the whole point of having an app-like experience for the doc. For example, people want to use it to track their hours worked while in the field. But the Coda app won’t even load so they end up having to write everything down on paper and then put it into the Coda doc later at their computer. And I experience the same thing myself. This problem does not persist with either of the two primary competing apps. I’m not even complaining about the limited functionality of the iPhone app. It’s just that it simply won’t even open 90% of the time.

When I first learned how to use spreadsheet formulas, I thought it was magic. I’d hack a spreadsheet or a google doc for almost everything in life and work (trip planning, project tracking, notes... the list goes on). Now I use Coda for everything AND I DON’T EVEN NEED TO HACK IT. I made a CRM for my apartment search when I moved to Seattle. I planned a trip to Iceland with my mom so we could share our itinerary, expenses, reservations, and emergency info all in one place. I moved my family recipe database from a huge Drive folder to a single Coda doc with cute icons for every section. On a project tracker with my team at work, I made my own view for my tasks that still updates the main tracker when I change a status. Now with the app, I can pull up my recipes on my phone, use buttons to make status updates when I’m not at my desk, or get reminders from my habit tracker doc as push notifications. 🙏🏼 All I can say is YAS.

Coda is amazing. The idea for the app to turn docs into “mini apps” is absolutely a fantastic design implementation. However, there are significant issues that disrupt user joy. 1.) slowness of the app to load2.) it says it works offline, but because it works so slowly, I don’t trust that it works offline Slack’s app had this problem in the early days as well. The background app refresh often cause drafts to disappear and the app would reload causing you to lose your place. Incredibly frustrating because on mobile, you are constantly switching from one app to the next in order to get the information into its appropriate place. The only feature this coda app needs is to load instantly to the last place you Had the app open. Get rid of that stressful loading circle. Omg. If it works offline, then everything about this loading circle tells me that it doesn’t. I’ve never opened the app and seen the ring around less than 4 times. That means I’m literally counting to four. It’s 2020. Kill me. Developers— please find pride in getting your screen changes to happen in less than 200ms. Also the “going back to home” interaction. Takes a stressfully long amount of time to switch between coda docs. That being said — I love the service. You are legends. Keep it up!