How to Turn Your Blog or Business Into an Android or iOS App -- for Free
Facebook page for your business? Check. Daily batch of clever, attention-getting tweets? Check. Professional-looking Android/iOS app you can share with clients or the whole wide world? Uh, sure, like you can afford to hire a team of programmers and spend months developing an app.
Scratch the programmers, the months, and even the money. Appsbar gives you the tools to build and publish apps for Android and iOS. You can do the entire project yourself in a couple hours (possibly less), and it won't cost you a dime.
Appsbar walks you through each step of the app-building process. First, you choose a category. The Business options include Company, Events, Professional Services, and Restaurant. (If you're just looking to promote your blog, you'll find that under Personal.)
Next, you name your app, then choose an icon, splash screen, color scheme, and other design elements. For most of these options, you can upload your own artwork, pull something straight from the Web, or choose from Appsbar's library.
From there you select and fill various content pages: photos, videos, forms, RSS feeds, event calendars, contact information, your company's social-network links, and so on. What's especially cool is that as you add and configure all this stuff, you can interact with your "app" in real-time using an onscreen emulator.
When you're done, Appsbar runs through a quick checklist to make sure everything's go for launch (and gives you the option to fix things if it's not). Then you supply the necessary details (app category, keywords, etc.) for publishing to Android Market and/or Apple's App Store. According to Appsbar, it usually takes 10-14 days for your app to go live.
Amazing, no? I built a simplistic but functional Business Hacks app (not to be confused with the much more robust BNET app) in about 15 minutes. Given another 30-45 minutes, I could have turned it into something truly impressive.
And that's my impression of Appsbar overall: truly impressive. If you're looking for a way to promote or augment your business in app form, you'll be hard-pressed to find a cheaper or easier solution.
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