In looking at low-barrier ways to take advantages of the affordances of mobile apps, I have played a little bit with shoutem. Shoutem lets you build an app with a simple web interface. It is kind of like a CMS for apps, if that analogy even makes any sense. At first I thought it would just make cheesy apps that are simply a wrapper for a web site but there are actually some decent features here. There are 16 building blocks that you can arrange and configure to create various types of apps. It is not just about displaying information in the hands of your users. You can configure some of the widgets to allow submissions from users. So for instance you could allow users of your apps to add locations to the same map, or share photos. Shoutem also allows you to send push notifications to your users and can provide analytics on how your users are interacting with your app.
I could see shoutem as super low-cost way to start experimenting with apps for classes that take advantage of the unique characteristics of mobile: location, photos, presence. While you are limited to the featured of the shoutem toolbox, the barrier to entry is so low I could envision custom apps for specific classes being rather feasible.
I came across another product in this category today. Cabana offers what seems like a much more advanced interface for creating apps compared to shoutem. The demo video shows the creator actually dragging UI elements around and hooking up views to various datasources around the internet (e.g. instsgram, twitter). Still a relatively low barrier to entry when compared with getting to know the iOS sdk, but not so simple as shoutem. Cabana produces html 5 apps, not native apps. Although I can’t figure out how they accessed the iphone’s camera in an html 5 app in their demo video. Cabana made some news today when they launched a product that will automatically turn a facebook fan page into an app.
