BackClick and create your own apps
Click and create your own apps
PremiumAddicted to apps? If you fail to find wacky apps on the market, a score of websites will help you customize your own. Illustration by Raajan/Mint
In a 2011 report, US-based global market intelligence firm International Data Corporation (IDC) suggested there would be 85 billion mobile app downloads by 2020. Take a deep breath and think about becoming a mobile app developer. It appears there won’t be a human being on earth by 2020 who can live without apps.
According to the report, “Top 10 Predictions for 2012: Competing for 2020", 300,000-plus applications were downloaded 10.9 billion times in 2010. The numbers for 2010 have made me wonder: Who is making all those apps? Where are all those mobile app developers hiding?
And then I stumbled across the truth. Anyone can use HTML5 to create a mobile app, without knowing anything about programming.
By using Web-based app-creation services you could be building—rather, piecing together—a variety of mobile apps without any formal training.
At this point you are perhaps wondering what kind of apps to make. Try these for ideas: If you are in college, how about an app that can distribute reference notes to fellow students after class each day? Just point your camera at your notes and shoot. The app does the rest. Or, if you are part of a hobby club like nature photography, you may want to create an app that captures and distributes the location of participants during an event. If you are a small business, you may want to distribute a regular newsletter to customers using a mobile app rather than a Web page!
Here is our top pick of free services, organized by levels of complexity, to get you started. See you in the app market, soon!
AppsGeyser
However, this is what I think AppsGeyser does: It creates a short-cut to your website, recreating it in HTML5 for the mobile device. In effect, this is not a real app, but a handy way of displaying your website on mobile devices.
You may be wondering, “How does it help to wrap my Web page as an ‘app’?" Answer: Users just fire the “app" to see the latest that is on your Web page rather than using a browser that “distorts" your site on various mobile devices.
Complexity level: A no-brainer.
Infinite Monkeys
Complexity level: For those who know what they want from their app.
MIT AppInventor Experimental
beta.appinventor.mit.edu
Complexity level: For the serious app builder.
Arun Katiyar is a content and communication consultant with a focus on technology companies. He is a published author with HarperCollins and has extensive media experience spanning music, print, radio, the Internet and mobile phones.
Write to us at businessoflife@livemint.com
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