ABI figures by 2016, the mobile industry will have nothing but smartphones and every man, woman and child on the planet will download six mobile apps.
Have a good idea but lack coding skills? Several companies are now offering free or low cost tools that allow anyone to create mobile applications — without programming skills.
Google’s App Inventor began as an educational tool but gained a new audience of hobbyists and creators, so subsequent App Inventor updates have transformed it from an educational system into a more robust tool that lets you build more complex Android apps.
Developing traditional mobile applications can cost $30K or more. It requires expensive expertise and months of hard work.
But if you only want to create a free local guide to an event or conference, create a guide to local bike trails or bird watching sites, these tools might be just the ticket.
Here are a few:
- AppsBar (Facebook and Blog). Lets Anyone Create An App, with support for publishing content through iTunes, Android Market, and Windows Marketplace. Creators work through the formation process and are provided with a number of opportunities to personalize the app with colors, fonts, and personal media. AppsBar will only allow created content to be released as free applications in their respective app stores.
- AppMakr (Facebook and Blog). Make simple iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch apps with a minimum of fuss. You create simple apps consisting of RSS feeds, pictures or data. You create the app online and “publish” it either privately or with their help. They’re adding support for Windows Phone 7 and Android.
- AppsGeyser (Facebook & Blog) & to get your Android App. No installation, no hassle and free. The service will take any web content and make an Android app out of it. It can be freely distributed to other users. They monetize the service by inserting ads into the best performing apps.
AppsGeyser Product Tour from Andrew Kudrin on Vimeo.
- MapBox (Twitter and Blog). MapBox makes it easier to design beautiful custom maps, and integrate them into websites and mobile applications, but it requires more programming skills.
- Google Map Maker now enables you to add your expert local knowledge directly on a map. The collective expertise of the Map Maker community can be shared with millions of people on a map of the United States in Google Map Maker. For example, you can fix the name of your local pizza parlor, or add a description of your favorite book store.
- Geoloqi. A location-messaging platform on a private, real-time mobile and web platform for securely sharing location data. It features Geonotes, proximal notification, and sharing real-time GPS maps with friends. You can turn the real-time map into a game, like their Map Attack.
- GeoTour. For iPhone, iPod Touch, & iPad, it turns your device into a personal digital tour guide. It’s free at the App Store. For each location, you can add any combination of audio, image, video or text descriptions using media files that you’ve uploaded to your GeoTour media storage. GeoTour editor, lets you can add locations to each tour.
- ApSynth, allows Web apps to be “embedded and spread to other Web sites, blogs and social networks.
- MobileNation Bringing mobile app development tools to a wider population
- Broadcastr collects audio clips from various sources and pin them to physical locations, so people can be fed stories, audio tour guides and historical clips that are relevant to their physical locations. Playlists can also be formed based on subject matter or source.
- The NY Times says social media and the spoken word are being brought together with several new applications like SoundCloud, Audioboo and Said.fm which allow users to share short audio clips.
The NY Times has a guide to mobile apps as does App Scout and Free Apps.
E-Book formats include e-Pub, which does not enforce or suggest a particular DRM scheme. Upload a manuscript as a Microsoft Word .doc or .docx file, formatted to the Smashwords Style Guide, and Smashwords automatically converts the book into multiple formats, including EPUB. Sigil is a free and open source ePub e-book editing software. It is a multi-platform WYSIWYG ebook editor.
Unfortunately, Amazon’s Kindle lacks EPUB support. Amazon uses their own AZW and DRM for content sold on their store. The Kindle can only use AZW files for protected content but can read MobiPocket files for unprotected content, with or without the AZW extension. Amazon has developed an .epub to .mobi converter called KindleGen. DRM is independent of eBook formats.
Penguin Books sees ebooks hitting 10 percent of book sales this year. Forester says 14% of Americans — 27 million people – plan on purchasing a tablet device this year. A similar study by the Magazine Publishers of America found that nearly 60 percent of U.S. consumers expect to purchase an e-reader or tablet within the next three years.
According to Forrester’s five-year forecast for eBooks in the U.S., 2010 will end with a total of $966 million in eBook sales. It’s expected to triple, with $3 billion in sales by 2015. At that point the industry will be forever altered.
Related e-book articles on Dailywireless include; Nook Color Updated for Android Apps, Amanda Hocking: e-Book Sensation, App Store Subscriptions, Google Books for Honeycomb, Adobe: Tablet Publishing for Android, Google Editions: Web eBooks Readied , Bookstores: Preparing for E-Books?, e-Publishing: The New Normal, iPad Publishing Model: It’s People!
