Hillcraft › For hotels › Hotel app showcase
Hotel & resort app development · native iPhone · built and running
The app your guests would actually use —
built for your hotel,
owned by your hotel
This is Aurelune, a fictional hotel we invented so we could show you everything at once. Every screen below is a real, native iPhone app running on Apple’s own simulators, recorded as it drives itself: phone check-in, a room key in Apple Wallet, QR order-and-pay, live queues, a concierge, and the dashboard your managers see. It speaks English, Turkish and Chinese, and it is already laid out for the folding iPhone Duo. Picture your name on it.
Made by Jordan Hill · Hillcraft, a UK software studio · hillcraft.dev
A demonstration — but real, and it exists.
Aurelune is not a real hotel and this app is not in the App Store. It is a showcase of the kind of work Hillcraft is hired to do: the screens, layouts, animations and Apple frameworks are all real code. The guests, prices and figures are sample data, and the few steps that need your own systems (issuing the Wallet key, taking the payment, scanning the passport) are clearly labelled further down.
Watch it run — every screen, every fold
A real recording from Apple’s Device Hub. The app walks through itself while the iPhone Duo is turned, closed to its front screen, opened again and rotated. One app, relaid out live for each pose.
Unfolded landscape → portrait → closed (front screen) → open → landscape
Nothing replaces your team
Reception still welcomes every guest. The app takes the queues and the repetitive questions, so your people have time for hospitality.
Guests opt in
Nobody is forced to install anything. QR ordering opens instantly without a download, and the desk works exactly as it does today.
Built around your routine
It connects to the systems you already run (PMS, door locks, POS) rather than asking your staff to change how they work.
Make it yours: the same app as three different hotels
A coastal resort, a city boutique and a mountain lodge. Colours, typeface, photography and even the signature tab (beach club, rooftop, ski slopes) change in one tap, because the app is built around a brand file, not around one hotel. Yours would carry your name, your photographs and the thing your guests come for.
The iPhone your guests carry — and the iPhone Duo, side by side
There is no separate “tablet version”. The same code fills a normal iPhone in one column and opens into two panes across the Duo’s inner display, in English and Turkish.
Same app, same recording method, a normal iPhone
This is the identical build running on an iPhone 18 Pro. Liquid Glass tab bar, the “next up” strip that rides on it, photographs that settle in as you arrive.
- one codebase
- every iPhone
A guest’s day at a glance: check-in, weather, tonight, quick actions.
📱 iPhone ↔ iPhone Duo
Wallet room key, room controls, requests and express checkout.
📱 iPhone ↔ iPhone Duo
Live waits, day passes, order-to-your-spot and how busy each zone is.
📱 iPhone ↔ iPhone Duo
One tap, and the whole app speaks Turkish. Another, and it speaks Chinese.
Every label, button and message is hand-translated, not machine output, and fits its space in all three languages, with prices in euros, lira or yuan to match. More languages are a file each.
Tap the cards to fan them out
Recorded on the iPhone Duo’s closed front screen
See it working
Each clip is the actual app driving itself on the device. Nothing here is a slideshow.
Check in on the transfer, walk straight to the room
Passport, selfie, details, key. The guest arrives already checked in and the transfer counts down on the lock screen. In this showcase the scan is simulated; with your systems it reads the real document on the phone.
PassKitActivityKitWidgetKit
Scan the sunbed, order, pay, watch it arrive
A code on the sunbed, table or piste hut opens the menu instantly. Two taps to Apple Pay, then live tracking on the lock screen. Payment here is a labelled demo; live, the money goes straight to your own account.
PassKit- no commission
- no app needed to order
A concierge that actually books things
“A massage around four and somewhere nice for dinner” becomes two bookings, a reminder and directions. The conversation shown is a scripted sample; the app is wired to Apple’s on-device model for live replies where the phone supports it.
FoundationModelsApp Intents- scripted sample shown
The upsell sits right where the guest is looking
Live waits beside the fast-pass. The cabana beside the busy-ness meter. Tonight’s table beside the show. Each one is a tap, charged to the room.
- fast-pass & cabanas
- order to your spot
- table & spa bookings
One reminder, and tonight’s event fills
An hour before the sunset session, every guest in-house gets a reminder on the lock screen. Watch the places go: 38 of 60 becomes 57 of 60 in minutes, each one a tap, each one charged to the room. Quiet spa hours, the à la carte with empty tables and tomorrow’s boat trip fill the same way. The figures in the clip are sample data.
- fuller events
- sent at the right moment
- guest opts in
A guest who cannot pay easily does not spend. Fix that, and they do.
Your guests arrive from China, Russia, Germany, Britain and the Gulf with different cards, different wallets and different languages. Most hotels make all of them pay the same way, and quietly lose the sale when it does not work. The app removes every one of those small failures.
Scan with WeChat, and the stay opens in Chinese
The code draws itself, is scanned, and the hotel’s mini-programme opens: a welcome in Chinese, the room key, ordering, spa and the concierge, then a drink paid with WeChat Pay in yuan. The QR code is really generated on the phone; connecting it needs your WeChat account and a payment acquirer, so this clip is a labelled simulation.
- in Chinese
- nothing to install
- simulated here
Cards that fail abroad
A foreign card is often declined by the guest’s own bank, or asks for a security code sent to a SIM that is not roaming. At the pool bar that is a lost order. Apple Pay is approved on the phone with Face ID, so it goes through.
No WeChat Pay, no Alipay
Many Chinese travellers pay for everything with a QR code and carry no international card at all. One code on the sunbed or the table lets them order and pay the way they do at home, in Chinese.
Prices they have to work out
A price in an unfamiliar currency makes people hesitate. The app shows each guest prices in their own language and currency: lira in Turkish, yuan in Chinese, euros in English.
Cash, ATMs and limits
When the only easy way to pay is cash, spending stops at what is in the wallet. Charging to the room and settling once at checkout removes the limit.
A menu they cannot read
Spa lists, à la carte menus and excursion boards in one language sell to one kind of guest. Here the whole app switches between English, Turkish and Chinese in one tap, and further languages are a file each.
Nothing to install
Guests from China rarely download a hotel app. They scan. The WeChat mini-programme gives them the room key, ordering and the concierge inside the app they already use all day.
No commission, no middleman. Hillcraft takes no share of what your guests spend and there is no marketplace in between. You pay only your own payment provider’s normal processing rate, the same kind of fee as any card payment, and the money settles to your account. Every guest who can pay the way they pay at home is a sale you keep rather than one you never knew you lost.
🧑🍳 The same idea works for your team: many resort spa, housekeeping and restaurant staff read Indonesian or Russian more easily than Turkish or English, and a staff app can speak to each of them in their own language.
Unfolded wide, unfolded tall, or closed in one hand
A folding phone is exactly where lazy apps fall apart. This one was designed for it from the first screen.
Unfolded · landscapeTwo panes across the inner display
Unfolded · portraitOne generous column
Closed · front screenA normal phone in one handWhy being early matters
When a new iPhone shape arrives, guests notice which apps are ready. Hillcraft builds against Apple’s newest tools as they are released, so your app is ready on day one, not a year later.
Honest footnote: the iPhone Duo work is tested in Apple’s simulator (Device Hub), not yet on hardware.
Everything a modern hotel app can do
Built natively in Swift and SwiftUI. The labels say what is running for real in this showcase and what needs your systems to finish.
Apple Wallet room key
The real Add to Apple Wallet button and a multilingual pass, ready to be signed with your hotel’s certificate and paired with your locks.
simulated here · needs your systemsLive Activities & Dynamic Island
Transfers and orders count down on the lock screen. Runs today; your server pushes the updates.
real in this buildLiquid Glass, the current iPhone look
Floating glass tab bar, controls that morph into each other, zoom transitions from card to screen.
real in this buildiPhone Duo & every iPhone
One adaptive layout for the fold, including a hero that responds to the hinge as the phone opens.
real in this buildQR order-and-pay with Apple Pay
The real Apple Pay button and the full flow. Live, it settles to your own merchant account, with no marketplace in between.
simulated here · needs your systemsOn-device AI concierge
Wired to Apple’s Foundation Models framework. Private to the phone, answers in the guest’s language.
real in this buildWidgets, Control Centre, Siri & Spotlight
Room key and order-to-me one press away, from the home screen or by voice.
real in this buildMaps & wayfinding
An animated route from the guest’s room, plus Apple Maps in 3D for the area around you.
real in this buildOperator dashboard with 3D charts
Swift Charts, including Apple’s new Chart3D, with figures that count up as the screen opens.
real in this buildPhone check-in
The full four-step flow. The camera scan uses Apple Vision on a real phone; simulators have no camera.
simulated here · needs your systemsEnglish, Turkish, Chinese and more
Nearly 500 hand-written strings per language, switched live, with local currency. Add German or Russian as a file, not a rebuild.
real in this buildDark mode, accessibility, haptics
The details guests feel without naming: it looks intentional at night and speaks to VoiceOver.
real in this buildWhat an app like this does for a hotel
A hotel already has the guests. The app puts every paid extra one tap away, at the moment they want it.
Order to the sunbed, table or room
No waving for a waiter. Orders go to the right bar with the right spot number.
spend per guestFast-pass, cabanas, daybeds
Sold beside the live wait time, which is exactly when they are worth the most.
new revenueSpa & à la carte fill themselves
Quiet slots surface as offers. The concierge bundles a massage with dinner.
fills empty hoursExcursions booked through you
Trips and transfers sold in the app instead of by the rep in the lobby.
your marginDeposits for group bookings
Card or Apple Pay deposits so a no-show is a paid no-show.
fewer no-showsRequests without the phone call
Towels, housekeeping, a fault in the room: logged, routed and tracked.
less desk loadDirect relationship, direct rebooking
The guest leaves with your app on their phone, not a booking site’s.
no commissionSee it while it is happening
Which zone is full, which bar is slow, what sold tonight: live, not in next month’s report.
live decisionsWhat it earns, and how you watch it earn
Guests spend more when buying is one tap and the offer arrives at the right moment. An app you own keeps that extra spend in your account instead of paying commission on it, and the operator view shows it happening live.
Put your own numbers in
This is arithmetic on the numbers you enter, not a forecast or a promise. It is here to show how small amounts per guest add up over a season.
The operator view: see it while it is happening
Occupancy, rate, revenue mix, what the last reminder earned, a 3D demand surface, live zone flow and the request queue. Everything moves, and everything here is sample data until it is connected to your systems.
Swift ChartsChart3D- live decisions
Bespoke, built from the ground up, and yours
Money straight to your account
Card and Apple Pay through your own Turkish payment provider. No platform taking a cut of every drink.
You own the app, the code and the data
Published under your name. No monthly rent to a template company, and nobody can switch it off.
Your own admin and backend
The server side, the staff tools and the integrations are built for how your hotel already runs.
Designed for you, not from a theme
What you saw re-skin in one tap is the starting point. Your version is designed around your brand.
Fast, native, always current
Real Swift, not a website in a wrapper. New Apple features land in your app when Apple releases them.
One accountable team
Hillcraft is led by Jordan Hill, Technical Lead at Arcade WOW, with nine years building for Apple platforms. Delivered remotely from the UK.
🧩 It does not stop at this app. A fast website in your brand with live availability and direct booking. Staff apps for housekeeping and the bar. WhatsApp confirmations. Screens and shows that react to the app. If it runs on a screen in your hotel, it can be built to work together.
Hotel app development: the short answers
Is this a template I would be renting?
No. Aurelune is a showcase. Your app is designed and written for your hotel, published under your name, and you own the code and the data.
What does it cost?
It depends on what you want it to do and which systems it connects to, so there is no price list. Tell me about your hotel and I will come back with a clear, fixed proposal.
Does it work with our PMS, door locks and POS?
That is the point of building it bespoke. The integrations are written for the systems you already use; which ones are possible depends on what each vendor exposes, and we check that first.
Do guests have to download an app to order?
No. QR ordering can open instantly as an App Clip or a web page. The full app is for guests who want the key, the bookings and the concierge.
What about Android?
The same backend serves an Android app and the website. We usually start with iPhone, where hotel guests spend the most, and add Android alongside.
We are in Türkiye and you are in the UK. How does that work?
Everything is delivered remotely: design, builds you can install and try, and support over WhatsApp and email, in English with Turkish materials. Payments run through your own Turkish provider.
How does a hotel app increase revenue?
By putting every paid extra one tap away at the moment the guest wants it: drinks to the sunbed, a cabana beside the wait time, a spa slot that would have stayed empty, tomorrow’s excursion. Timely reminders fill events and restaurants, deposits stop no-shows, and direct rebooking avoids agency commission. How much depends on your hotel, which is why the calculator above uses your numbers.
How long does it take to build a hotel app?
The guest-facing app you see here is the quick part. The schedule is set by the integrations: your PMS, door locks, POS and payment provider. We agree a first release that is useful on its own, usually check-in, ordering and bookings, and add the rest in steps.
Can guests really open their room with Apple Wallet?
Yes, where the lock system supports it. Several major lock vendors support room keys in Apple Wallet. The app side is ready; what is possible at your property depends on your locks, and that is one of the first things we check.
Why a native app instead of a website or a ready-made platform?
A website cannot put a key in Wallet, a countdown on the lock screen or a reminder in front of the guest at the right minute. A ready-made platform can, but you rent it, it looks like everyone else’s, and it often takes a share of what your guests spend. A bespoke native app is yours, carries your brand, and gets new Apple features when they are released.