According to AppsMoment press release, Google Keyword Planner reports over 50.000 monthly searches for different variations of “How to make an app” search query, which is no surprise since the surge in mobile apps market is a fact. A majority of smartphone owners use their devices to keep up with their social networks, to stay informed about the breaking news, weather and events in heir local communities, navigate the Internet, be productive, rest and play, among other things.
We spend about three hours daily consumed by our mobile devices. Hence, the creators of AppsMoment thought it might be a good idea to let small entrepreneurs who are non-techies create apps and games to take their businesses to the fastest growing marketing platform – the mobile. At the same time, the platform’s versatility and accessibility allows aspiring developers and non-developers try their hand at creating apps and games and even publish them. I have spent a few hours toying with the platform and was genuinely impressed at how easy it makes it even for a dummy like myself.
In a matter of thirty minutes, I was able to create a simplistic yet functional app that represented my non-existent night club. Another 20 minutes and I had a rough skeleton of an actor’s portfolio and booking application, which can be basically transformed into a writer’s or journalist’s app.
The service lets you toy with the free templates if you register using your email, and from there, you are free to choose from roughly 200 templates that have to do with pretty much every niche of app stores – magazines, entertainment, business, publishing, e-commerce, music, events, tourism, and many many more. All you have to do is browse the templates and choose the one you like or choose a blank template.
From there, the platform takes you by the hand (if you have absolutely no skills) and shows you where to upload a background image for your app, or where to find a free available one in the platform’s image pool. Then you do the same for the app’s icon, loading screen and choose the font size and color for your creation.
The next step is to choose the menus you think your app needs, or choose to have the default ones – name them, fill them with content and links and voilà! From there, you can download AppsMoment app on your device, log in with your credentials and test the app inside the test application. Your web platform’s contents syncs with your mobile app, and you can see your creations in real time on your mobile.
AppsMoment lets you create apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Amazon Kindle and mobile web apps for a variety of screen resolutions, offering over 100 customizable features within the templates.
As far as the game building is concerned, all the game templates seem to be premium, but you can choose from a large variety of gameplay types – roulette, Flappy Birds, 2048, arcade, puzzle, runners and shooters, and more, and the latest service update brought 30 new game designs.
Now, if you want to be able to publish your app, you can do so via the AppsMoment platform and the app will be distributed for free. If you want to have your own developer’s byline on the app store and charge for it, however, you will of course need to register and sign the contract with the iTunes or Google Play, or whatever app store you’re planning to publish on.
The Free Tester’s account lets you build and try apps from free templates for Android, iOS and Amazon and even publish one app. The app is allowed to have push notifications and IAPs, and you can use your developer’s account to publish. The only thing that the tester’s account missing is a free game template, at least a couple of them to see how it works without publishing before committing.
Now, as far as the premium memberships are concerned, there are options and you can start with $49 yearly starter plan, or try a $29 monthly publisher account, or go all-in with a Publisher+ that costs $197 per year and grants you unlimited apps, unlimited updates and more perks. All paid plans open the access to the games building templates. There is also a special White Label plan, the cost of which is determined by your individual needs and lets you have unlimited accounts within the plan, which is perfect for web designers and digital marketing agencies.
The service is jam-packed with exhaustive FAQs, written and video tutorials and offers human assistance as well. For example, when you are ready to publish, you submit your app for revision by the AppsMoments moderators and they review it for consistency – that all the menus and tabs, links and media content work fine and the app complies with the iTunes or Google Play publishing policies.
If you want to release the app for two or three platforms, you would have to go through the creation process three times, but the financial investment is significantly smaller if compared to hiring a developer to make one app for a small local plumbing service, or a small family pizzeria. This is the magic key for any small business owner to go mobile and expand their reach, or simplify the marketing or order procedures tapping into the immense potential of the mobile platform.
Overall, the service seems pretty impressive and robust, with its focus on simplicity for the non-techies. At the same time, the technically savvy will find a lot of ways to expand on the existing templates and create something unique.
According to AppsMoment, over 16.000 users have published over 400.000 apps with AppsMoment within the last two years, and now that the service grows its database of templates and offers accessible plans, the small businesses, students, actors, freelancers in all spheres from marketing to wedding planning, restaurant owners and bakeries use the service to create the apps and connect with their clientele via the mobile platform.
Finally, I remembered a demotivator meme I saw on Twitter once:
Quite disheartening, but the indie spectrum of the market is where we usually find the most unique of the games, and AppsMoment has the potential to make the difference for the aspiring indies simply because the writing was on the wall all the time, and the service like that should have become accessible for anyone willing to have a go at apps and games building any time soon. Now, you can try it without the need to complete an engineering or computer science degree – check out AppsMoment’s website.
What do you think – is it about time mobile apps and games development should become mainstream and accessible to the non-techies already? Share your thoughts in the comments below or join a conversation on our forums. Don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ to get the hand-picked news about apps and games, reviews and guides for Android, iOS and Windows Phone.
