This would show the last known table schema and data that was shown, but would allow to make records and sync when the mobile device comes back online. Issues would be resolved via the web to validate issues.
I agree with almost every offline request and purpose 100%. No offline access, has been at the top of my “deal-breaker” list for as long as I have had a “deal-breaker” list (at least a decade).
Since this app seems to be sooo incredible, I can’t help but to jump in at least knee deep, and start learning/using.
BUT I can not see ever using it for serious data storage and manipulation until offline access is a feature.
Thank you, for what you have offered to all of us, so far. It is a beautiful piece of software and iOS app!
another bump for offline mode. devs- please note that there are two separate threads full of users requesting this so if you search for “offline” you will find all the requests. this is more popular and critical than it may appear at first glance. i know you have this in your plans but i hope the priority will be stepped up. thanks!
Just started to use Airtable yesterday and found this app just fantastic… until I realized it is not usable offline. This is unfortunately a show stopper for me.
I travel a lot around the world for work and wanted to use Airtable as a resource center for many info I need to have on hand all the time.
Unfortunately in my case roaming cost can quickly become a huge hurdle…
Until cellular service is universal and unbroken (100-300 years from now), Airtable will only be a truly mobile-friendly solution when it is available for viewing (at least) and editing (ideally) offline.
I wish AirTable would issue some type of stance on offline access for mobile devices. I don’t want to waste my time reading emails and forums for this software if offline access isn’t on the table. The software is unusable to me without it.
AirTable, is offline access for mobile devices in the works anytime soon?
Plus one for offline mode, especially now since there is a desktop version of the app. I would expect that the desktop version would act similarly to ever note’s desktop app which keeps everything local for offline use, but then syncs to the cloud version to update. Right now, the desktop version seems to be almost identical to the web app, but offline mode would be a big differentiator.
Hi, everyone! First off, we hear you loud and clear on the desire for offline mode. We’ve spent much time internally exploring the possibility of offline mode (and even building some prototypes), but it’s a fundamentally difficult feature to build. Since Airtable is a collaborative product, an ideal offline solution would need to gracefully handle merge conflicts, and do so in the context of Airtable’s relational data structure and rich field types. For comparison, Google Docs uses an approach termed operational transforms, but this only works on simpler data structures (i.e. a Google word document is represented as a single long string of text, and a spreadsheet is represented as a shapeless 2-dimensional array of cells).
As we continue to explore the tradeoffs for various implementations of offline mode, it would be very useful for our team to get some detailed feedback from dedicated Airtable users like yourselves about why and how you would like offline to be designed. Just a sampling of potential things to think about:
How would you want to use Airtable offline? Tell us your story. Are you a world traveler, wanting to find a way to look at your elaborately designed base of sightseeing spots without having to pay exorbitant roaming charges? Are you a construction baron, sending out remote workers to to survey your newly acquired plots of land? Are you a deep sea diver on a solo expedition in the Marianas Trench, logging undiscovered species of hagfish on the ocean floor? Do you just have really terrible WiFi in the boiler room under the stairs, where the boss moved your office?
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators? (Resolving merge conflicts when someone is the sole collaborator on a database is far simpler than doing so when you have multiple collaborators, some of whom are online and some of whom are offline, and all of whom are editing different things.)
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline? Do you just need a read-only version of the contents of your bases that you can access while offline? Or do you need to have the ability to edit the contents of records while offline? Or do you need to have the ability to change the database schemata while offline? (In order, these are: comparatively simple to implement; difficult to implement; incredibly difficult to implement.)
For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline? For a few minutes, as you drive through a tunnel? (Please don’t Airtable and drive.) For a few hours, as you sit in an airport terminal and refuse to pay for overpriced WiFi? For a few weeks, as you trek through the farthest reaches of frigid Nunavut?
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually? One potential way of alleviating the issues that arise with resolving merge conflicts is to force end users to make decisions on how to solve specific conflicts. This, however, comes with its own set of potential problems (e.g. being stalled by having to resolve a merge conflict when all you want to do is work, your co-workers getting mad that you merged over their data without their permission).
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile? Anecdotally, it seems like many of the people who want offline mode want it for mobile, but it would be good for us to get some clarification on that front.
