Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Propeller - Create native mobile apps, just drag and drop

usepropeller.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 39 posts

Re: Show HN: Propeller - Create native mobile apps, just drag and drop

#21

Post by 10char »

BillSaysThis wrote: post #15

The landing page IMO is missing a few important pieces of information: - this will not be free post-beta but there's no mention of pricing at all - the text says 'native' but not which OSes and if the apps can be deployed through the various App Stores - the rationale for limiting the on-page demo is fine but shouldn't prevent you from linking to a full-feature demo on a secondary page. Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback! We want (and plan) to have some type of free tier, but we don't have enough data to announce anything concrete yet. It's probably better to wait on that than to redact later =\

iOS + App Store for now, more later after we nail that workflow.

Re: Show HN: Propeller - Create native mobile apps, just drag and drop

#22

Post by lem72 »

gadders wrote: post #12
10char wrote: post #2

Hey HN, we're really excited to announce Propeller. It's the absolute best tool for non-technical folks to build mobile apps for themselves or their businesses. All of the other "app builder" tools are limited to prototyping UI or generate really subpar webview-based experiences. We're going to change that by letting you build fast, native apps and will store the data you care about. Would love to hear your thoughts!

The email sign-up doesn't work on IE 8 :-(

It didn't work for me on Firefox as well kept saying: Something went wrong :( Refresh and try again

Refreshed, tried again, same thing.

Re: Show HN: Propeller - Create native mobile apps, just drag and drop

#23

Post by samstave »

todd3834 wrote: post #10
10char wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, we have more elements in the full builder right now, but we kept the demo limited for aesthetics. More data entry types, more types of media, other goodies :) You won't be able to make anything under the sun, but what you can make will look and feel top notch. There's lots of monetization models we could use, and part of the reason we're doing the current beta is to find out what makes sense for us. Doing specif…

You might want to consider making it clear that there is more than the demo shows. The demo is great but I was under the impression that I was looking at the full version and quickly discounted it thinking I need more tools than that. I think just a line of copy explaining that would be helpful. Awesome demo btw.

Yeah - I would keep the demo, maybe add another one - or show an app that was built by the platform that has a unique look and feel.

Re: Show HN: Propeller - Create native mobile apps, just drag and drop

#24

Post by Falling3 »

tikhonj wrote: post #11

This is probably the best landing landing page for any product I've seen in a while, if not ever. I immediately had a good idea of what the product does, how it works and how easy it is to use. All without having to read too much text or watch a video.

Agreed, but like bmelton it took me longer than usual to figure out it was interactive. The little "try it" could definitely have been more obvious.

Re: Show HN: Propeller - Create native mobile apps, just drag and drop

#26

Post by coolnow »

10char wrote: post #21
BillSaysThis wrote: post #15

The landing page IMO is missing a few important pieces of information: - this will not be free post-beta but there's no mention of pricing at all - the text says 'native' but not which OSes and if the apps can be deployed through the various App Stores - the rationale for limiting the on-page demo is fine but shouldn't prevent you from linking to a full-feature demo on a secondary page. Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback! We want (and plan) to have some type of free tier, but we don't have enough data to announce anything concrete yet. It's probably better to wait on that than to redact later =\ iOS + App Store for now, more later after we nail that workflow.

I would use a free version with ads for yourselves after a certain amount of elements are used. Also, is there any way these apps will compile on a Windows machine? I don't need to be deployed to the App Store, i could install via Cydia (.deb) or iFunBox (.ipa) depending on how it works.

Re: Show HN: Propeller - Create native mobile apps, just drag and drop

#27

Post by jackhlaw »

miles_matthias wrote: post #14

How it is native, yet instantly shows any changes you make to all of your users?

I'm betting everyone gets basically the same vanilla app and then the interface you're using generates a property list (similar to XML) that provides the configuration that the app uses to figure out how to lay out elements. The app simply copies this property list on launch. They mention that you can run your app within one that they will have on the store so I'm assuming that's how they're doing that as well.

This is one of the ways that the iTunes Music Store/app store work to keep content dynamic. Notice that when you're on a poor connection and you open the app store that the icons and names at the bottom of the screen take a while to show up. This is because the app is just a shell and it's loading its configuration over the network.

Re: Show HN: Propeller - Create native mobile apps, just drag and drop

#29

Post by lbotos »

10char wrote: post #2

Hey HN, we're really excited to announce Propeller. It's the absolute best tool for non-technical folks to build mobile apps for themselves or their businesses. All of the other "app builder" tools are limited to prototyping UI or generate really subpar webview-based experiences. We're going to change that by letting you build fast, native apps and will store the data you care about. Would love to hear your thoughts!

Tons of questions:

1) How far along are you?

2) Pricing Ideas?

3) Target Market?

4) Funded at all?

5) Any available apps built with it yet?

6) "Store the data you care about". Can you elaborate on this?

Re: Show HN: Propeller - Create native mobile apps, just drag and drop

#30

Post by rogerbinns »

10char wrote: post #2

Hey HN, we're really excited to announce Propeller. It's the absolute best tool for non-technical folks to build mobile apps for themselves or their businesses. All of the other "app builder" tools are limited to prototyping UI or generate really subpar webview-based experiences. We're going to change that by letting you build fast, native apps and will store the data you care about. Would love to hear your thoughts!

I wish the overreaching claims were more honest. In reality tools like this are focussed on a particular subset of application types. For example you couldn't make space invaders using this, and probably not dropbox either.

I far prefer claims saying explicitly what it is good at, rather than implying it would good at any application type.

Post reply on HN