Haven’t you heard, building your own apps is the latest technology craze? Last week we reported that Amazon Simple Workflow will be helping consumers create, manage, and maintenance their own apps. Today, Smart Online is introducing their service to help users do the same for mobile apps. This tuesday, the company will demonstrate their new service at a global marketing conference.
No longer will creative types have to seek outside developers to bring their app fantasies to reality. Bob Dieterle, Smart Online’s Senior Vice President and GM speaks about the exciting new service:
“Every organization, whether it is in the public, private or non-profit sector, must inform and engage with their customers via mobile,”
“However, they have to be able to deal with the rapid change that characterizes the mobile segment. In today’s world, information and in turn apps, tend to become irrelevant in very little time. The SmartOn platform’s AppCycle™ is designed to let one deal with rapid change so they can develop and deploy a fresh version of any app quickly and affordably.”
“Our team applied decades of collective experience in mobile application development and deep insight into the marketing and sales challenges faced by operations of every size and type to create this technology that will impact mobile app development in much the same way that desktop publishing software revolutionized the creation and production of printed material.”
Here are the particulars of the new service from www.smartonline.com:
The AppCanvas™ allows one to freely design the look and feel of the application while the library of AppBlocks adds innovative mobile device functionality to their design via simple drag-and-drop movements. In the second phase, the AppForge™, the AppBlocks are configured, built, and tested, and the app’s functionality can be quickly previewed on a Smartphone, with changes being made back in the AppCanvas. The app is then deployed to the different app stores.
The AppOffice™ is a powerful management center used to manage and update all published apps’ content and functionality, simultaneously on both Apple and Android platforms. In addition the AppOffice is utilized to engage and communicate with users, and review app analytics.
I hope these services aren’t putting a lot of developers and IT people out of work. It’s great for the consumer and so called, ‘creative types’, but as technology evolves it can also leave an empty spot where expertise used to be employed. I think this is a particularly large challenge we face in society today. We’ll have to want and see what effect this technology has on app developers new and old. This is a necessary progression for mobile technology providers, and it will be interesting to see how society evolves as a result.