Show HN: Propeller - Create native mobile apps, just drag and drop • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by X-Istence » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 10:35 PM UTC

When I read Propeller my first thought was http://www.parallax.com/propeller/ which is a 8 core micro controller.

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

#32

Post by fold » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 12:04 AM UTC

Awesome landing page. I immediately dragged and dropped just from seeing the control wiggle.

Small detail, is the logo spinning backwards? I'm not an expert on propellers, it just feels wrong.

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

#33

Post by haihaibye » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 12:34 AM UTC

Good luck but beware - there are quite a few of these products, and so far none are successful. I think this is because they are trying to solve the "lowering the barrier to entry on the app store" problem.

I think this is the wrong problem, the real problem is how to get your app noticed, and this is down to being high quality and individually themed. These two problems are somewhat at odds with each other.

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

#34

Post by witoldc » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 12:35 AM UTC

rogerbinns wrote: post #30

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.

Agreed. I still have no idea what propeller can do in terms of apps.

A while ago, I spent an evening signing up for all these sites claiming to make mobile apps. I wanted to use my database of addresses on the backend to let users search for nearest X. Nothing fancy. But not one of these visual app developer sites could do it. Most of these visual app builders are nothing more than a few pages/mobile sites that don't do anything. There is nothing 'app' about the results.

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

#35

Post by killahpriest » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 1:05 AM UTC

lem72 wrote: post #22

gadders wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nothing seems to work in FF these days. =/

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

#36

Post by dsirijus » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 8:44 AM UTC

haihaibye wrote: post #33

Good luck but beware - there are quite a few of these products, and so far none are successful. I think this is because they are trying to solve the "lowering the barrier to entry on the app store" problem. I think this is the wrong problem, the real problem is how to get your app noticed, and this is down to being high quality and individually themed. These two problems are somewhat at odds with each other.

ShoutEm [1], a Croatian startup, is doing pretty well in this area. And it's actually quite powerful when you dig into it.

[1] http://www.shoutem.com/

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

#37

Post by andybak » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 10:24 AM UTC

zupreme wrote: post #28

I think I know the answer to this already but, just to be sure, can this be used to create Android apps, or is this IOS-only?

I found it pretty strange that there was no mention at all of the OS this targeted.

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

#38

Post by tehwebguy » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 11:14 AM UTC

ablefire wrote: post #16

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!

Well done! I signed up for your beta. I am on the verge of paying $99 for Appsify.me. They have a web based builder tool and claim to generate code for XCode to compile while allowing apps to be extended in ObjC a needed. Any thoughts on Appsify.me? Are you taking a similar approach?

This looks very cool, I'm not seeing any TabBar support though.

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

#39

Post by tehwebguy » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 4:43 PM UTC

tehwebguy wrote: post #38

ablefire wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well done! I signed up for your beta. I am on the verge of paying $99 for Appsify.me. They have a web based builder tool and claim to generate code for XCode to compile while allowing apps to be extended in ObjC a needed. Any thoughts on Appsify.me? Are you taking a similar approach?

This looks very cool, I'm not seeing any TabBar support though.

Just got a tweet from Appsify following this comment: they DO support tabs.