Fri, 07/23/2010 – 07:54 by SachManya’s
Yapper joins a growing list of do-it-yourself smartphone app creators. The claim here is that you can create a smartphone app for $99 (and $299) using a WYSIWYG editor, “without a single line of code.” Google-Android
recently released App Inventor, which is a similar tool. Others include
Mobile Roadie and
MobileAppLoader among literally
a dozen others.
The first sites to use Yapper are news publications Palo Alto Online and West Seattle Herald. According to the release:
There are no SDKs and no developer skills required. Publishers of all kinds, including newspapers, TV stations, book and magazine publishers, bloggers and authors simply come to www.yapperapps.com and build their application online in WYSIWYG fashion. YAPPER is an end-to-end solution for publishers and includes many options, namely; in-app purchases, advertising support, analytics, app store submissions, publish under the company’s account as well as relevant components such as crossword puzzles, horoscopes and more. At launch, YAPPER won the distinguished 2010 Macworld DEMO Best of Show award and showcased the revolutionary technology on the main stage.
Based on my quick review, the Palo Alto Online Android app is certainly “credible” and not obviously created by a simple DIY tool. Because I haven’t used these various DIY app makers myself I can’t comment on which ones “work” and which ones are difficult to use or produce amateurish apps.
Clearly the market is hungry for an affordable and professional but simple tool that will allow publishers, bloggers and others to create smartphone apps for mobile content distribution.
