For app-making amateurs, as well as time-poor mobile aficionados, free platform Adsy is the new place for creating reasonably simple but nicely interactive web apps ‘on the go’.
Unlike many other app-creation platforms, Adsy is mobile-first, a web app in itself, which you’re given the option to bookmark on your home screen. You’re creating mobile content directly on the small screen, so it’s clear what the limitations are in terms of images, text and controls. And after you log in, you can choose one of just three actions: ‘create a new app’, ‘go to your apps’ or ‘check out our community’.
When you start creating an app, you’re offered three standard options for setting the background: camera and device (stored image or take one there and then), solid colour or patterned. A cloud-based option is coming soon. After thats done, you get a really stripped-back set of controls for customising your app, perfect for the limited screen size. Use the ‘plus’ sign on the right to add text, icons, plugins and extra pages. The fonts and other objects are pretty self-explanatory – the app comes without a tutorial – and are also good to look at, in keeping with the slick design of the today’s mobile devices.
Then, use the ‘magic finger’ on the left to animate the objects and text you’ve added – whether that’s an icon with a link to an external URL or an opportunity to explore another page in your app. If you do create additional pages, the user can also swipe between them, a natural movement for phone users, but perhaps not immediately clear. People in the Adsy community have used text and symbols to help people navigate around their apps.
Cramming a range of traditionally complex functions into a web app was never going to be easy but by and large Adsy has managed. The plugins on offer today are limited to Youtube video, Soundcloud audio, maps and place locators. Adsy says it has 30 lined up for the next six months, with the intention to let third parties build them as well as creating them in house.
The platform is still in pre-launch and the company is openly accepting feedback before it goes live. Some of the sizing and positioning controls could perhaps do with being tweaked, for example. That said, its marketing efforts so far, which have included a Kickstarter campaign, have produced more than 100 paying clients.
Adsy is working on premium offers, starting from around $5 per month, which will include usage stats and a larger set of plugins, including mobile payments. Like several messaging apps on the market, they may also explore premium stickers. The company is also in talks with some of the leading ad networks so it can start monetising this new app inventory.
Like other mobile-first platforms out there, the company lets you tag your content and search apps through popular, featured and latest streams, and you can also follow other peoples accounts. The social element may be the killer to combating discovery, with users comments and ratings presumably meaning more than they currently do in other app markets.
Adsy is an app-making platform for the mobile age – quick, easy and visually appealing – think Vine or Instagram for apps.