Create an iPhone app for your business in minutes With Sweb Apps: Update (Video)
Aimed primarily at small and medium-sized businesses without an in-house development staff,Sweb Apps is a new startup that lets you build a simple iPhone application using a series of web forms.
The upside is you don’t need any specific technical knowledge to build up an app quickly (the company touts “in as little as 5 minutes!”), but the downside is the app interface and functionality are relatively basic.
Still, for companies, individuals, or artists looking to put out an iPhone app quickly and for relatively little cost as compared to hiring a developer, Sweb Apps is worth checking out.
Creating an App
The process of creating an app is relatively simple. First, choose your general industry; currently Restaurant, Retail Store, Business, Non-Profit, Government, Education, and Entertainment are offered, with a wildcard “Customization” category if your app is a hybrid or doesn’t fit cleanly into one of the aforementioned categories.
Within each category are an assortment of buttons providing different functionality. For example the Education section has buttons for your contact information, photo and video galleries, a map for directions to your organization, media for press announcements, awards, board members, and what programs your org offers. Every section also offers buttons for your blog, Facebook and Twitter information as well.
After choosing which buttons will be included in your app, you’ll enter the appropriate data for your business or organization. Then you can further customize your apps by choosing specific layouts, changing the background color, or uploading your own button graphics.
Pricing
You essentially purchase a package based on how many buttons you want your app to include. Each package reflects a one-time setup fee of $50 per button, so the 4-button package is $200, 6 is $300 and 8 is $400.
In addition, you’re looking at a $25 monthly hosting fee to keep your app live to the world. If you sign up for a year in advance, you can snag a 10% discount for a $270 annual hosting rate.
One optional extra is the App Tracker, which is a statistical analysis package allowing you to track the usage data surrounding your app. You can get stats in various time intervals for how many times your app was downloaded and even how many times each button has been used, giving you a way to monitor the effectiveness the various components of your app.
Content Management in Real-Time
Any subsequent changes you need to make to your app can be handled in real-time via Sweb Apps’ Content Management System. Since your application details are hosted on their own servers, your submitted changes can be updated on the fly.
Check out a video tour of the service below, and let us know what you think. Is this “Lego” style architecture the future of mobile apps? Or will it never replace custom development for the truly serious? What do you think about the cost – is what Sweb Apps is asking for reasonable for the small business without access to dev resources? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
