I'm making my way back from vacation, slowly.
I wanted to quickly share a new service called AppMakr that allows anyone - even me - to easily create an iPhone app - for less than $200. With just a few clicks, I created an iPhone version of my blog.
The service provides a very user friendly interface to create a native iPhone application that you customize with images and content feeds. You can also monetize it by charging a fee or including ads. The service can publish your iPhone to the app store or for a higher fee you can publish with your own branding.
What you get is a very simple, informational iPhone app - it doesn't give you any interactive features that might be critical to achieving your goals. However, you'd probably be paying far more than $200, perhaps even as much as $10,000 for a customized app.
However, let's say you knew that your supporters/audience were iPhone users and were asking for ways to access your content on their iPhones. And, let's say you had an extremely limited budget, no design skills, and lacked iPhone programming expertise. This service is an inexpensive way to get your organization's content into an native iPhone.
If you want to be successful, I suggest that you spend time designing and planning your app than I did. For example, you could create multiple tabs. You'll also need to think about ways to promote it to your audience so they can find it and download it. And, of course, you'll need to figure out some metrics to measure your success.
If you're contemplating setting up a low cost experiment, AppMakr is offering a big discount to readers of this blog. You can create an iPhone app for $50. Just type in KANTER in the coupon area. The discount is good from 1/4 to 1/18.
Consider it downloaded! :)
Posted by: Danielle | January 04, 2010 at 12:32 PM
that's good point .. now have to figure out how to point people over to it at the Itunes store .. :-)
Posted by: Beth | January 04, 2010 at 02:09 PM
Oooooh! This is *so* cool.
Posted by: Britt Bravo | January 04, 2010 at 02:52 PM
Beth,
All you have to do is right click on the icon in iTunes, copy the URL and you're all set.
John
Posted by: Johnhaydon | January 05, 2010 at 04:45 AM
Please do post the URL when you find it--can't seem to find the app doing various keyword searches in iTunes store/applications. Thanks! Farra
Posted by: Farra Trompeter | January 05, 2010 at 05:17 AM
I <3 you, Beth Kanter (and your blog)! Thanks for always posting such relevant information. I have gleaned so much from you that's making my organization, NOEP (www.noeptexas.org), better.
Posted by: Joni Watson | January 05, 2010 at 06:17 AM
Can't wait to download it! Let us know when you have the link because searching isn't working just yet! Very exciting!
Posted by: Erin | January 05, 2010 at 06:24 AM
Will you be creating one for Android as well? =)
Posted by: Jess | January 05, 2010 at 09:02 AM
Thanks for the tip! Will definitely check it out! One note, I think your cost estimate is a little low. Customized iPhone apps are going for $15-$25K at least.
Posted by: Phony | January 05, 2010 at 09:29 AM
another option for wordpress users is this plugin: http://www.bravenewcode.com/wptouch/, which reformats your blog for mobile users. mobile users can see the results at http://btrandolph.com. at the botto of the page is a link to the regular version of the page. thanks Beth for scoring the discount!
Posted by: Btrandolph | January 05, 2010 at 11:32 AM
I definitely recommend using a mobile theme for organizations using wordpress. Many are free and the time investment is small. They aren't perfect, but provide a quick way to target a growing using base. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tags/mobile
You might also check out iphone control panel, which allows you to configure other aspects or even redirect iphone visitors to a page or site.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/iphone-control-panel/
Remember that 2.0 was all about bringing our desktop apps online. I think that iphone native apps are a little side-step, continuing the burden of user upgrades and developer maintenance. Mobile apps should be truly mobile, able to hop from platform to platform.
That said, thanks Beth for the great link. Definitely looks fun and interesting, and for the right campaign, a great tool.
Posted by: matthew willse | January 05, 2010 at 01:36 PM
We're trying out MotherApp.com, which combines your blog, Twitter feed, and YouTube into one app. Also allows users to share to Facebook, Twitter and E-mail. Options are either $99/year or a 50/50 rev share of ad revenue, though they don't even have their ad network functional yet so you can choose that option for a free app.
Posted by: Jon Loomer | January 14, 2010 at 08:20 AM