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Phonsai : Develop Mobile Applications for Several Platforms Instantly!


Earlier I posted about monetizing your apps through Intel App Center. In this post, I will review one of my favorite App on Intel App Up which can be used to develop mobile software compatible with all types of mobile phones quickly and that to without any coding knowledge.

Before we start with that app, let’s dig a bit and know about Intel App Up!

What is Intel App Up?

If you are a typical Internet freak who uses his laptop for extensive internet search, social networking, sharing music, pictures and emails, then netbooks are meant for you. They are not preferred for users who require a larger network and run multiple programs or applications simultaneously.

To make a netbook more customizable and useful, we use applications, commonly known as ‘apps’. There are millions of apps available having room for games, calculators, mapping programs , mobile blogging systems, mobile development systems, etc. Intel AppUp Center provides a feature to search for and purchase such an endless list of apps.

One can enjoy both paid and free apps serviced by Intel App Up. All the possible categories including social networking, productivity and gaming are provided by the service. It is attracting a larger portion because of the unique way in which apps are designed thus making them perfect in style , shape and size for a typical netbook. In order to make it more customer friendly, the center offers ‘try before you buy’ function for a large number of apps, thus making it easier for an interested user to decide.

Its success could be calculated by its beta program, which launched in 2010 and has treasured 450,000 users. The site is vivacious and intuitive offering users to decide from several categories which includes:
  1. Education
  2. Entertainment
  3. Finance
  4. Games
  5. Lifestyle
  6. Music & Audio
  7. Photo & Video
  8. Productivity
  9. Reference
  10. Social
  11. Sports
  12. Travel
  13. Utilities
Before I start with my favorite app Phonsai, let’s learn the importance of mobile apps in this modern era of mobile phones.

Importance of Mobile Apps

The technology has totally changed the literal meaning of Mobile phone, today it is not just used for calls and text messages, it has become one of the needs in food , water ,shelter list. You do not want a different songs player, a movie player, a gaming device, a camera, a reminder scheduler, a remote control, a travel guide and you don’t have to search for internet café in the middle of the road if you have an important email to respond to. If you have just a mobile phone , you have it all!

This is an era of high-end smart phones, containing thousands of applications to make life simpler. From computers to phones, we can see how our mobile phones have transformed into PC's by mobile phone applications.

A large number of brands are creating apps, if customers want to use their mobile as a mini computer to access the web, these businesses wanted to make it as easy to reach as many people as possible. Such brands offered services, content which largely attacked the new mobile world.

Big brands started developing mobile apps long back. Some offered tools, some offered services, and some offered content; whatever the case, these businesses attacked the emergence of the new mobile world and created their mobile presence.

The future of the mobile web is still evolving; many small and big business have entered into the app marketplace. As customers are becoming more enlightened towards new mobile technology they search for helpful and easier apps that allow them to interact hassle free.

As we go a bit deeper into the statics we came to know
  1. By the end of 2011, 50% of Americans will have a smartphone.
  2. The global smartphone market will soon hit 1 billion people
  3. App stores for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry already have 600,000 mobile apps.
With interesting numbers like this we can make out how vital mobile apps are for customers, not having a mobile app to reach you is like no home delivery for pizza. The most vital rule of marketing is “ be where the customers are” . Well the app customers are on iPhone, BlackBerry, Andriod, Symbian, iPad and other tablet devices and having more than 40 apps on an average user's device.

Although a mobile phone with these millions of features could be a little hard on pocket, but it seems the buyers have no problem when it comes to capturing the world on their palm with few extra cash and a bunch of technologies!

My Favorite Intel AppUp 'App'

Phonsai
Develop mobile applications for several platforms instantly!

While I was browsing through Intel App up, I stumbled upon this app which really fascinated me, Phonsai. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it is an online platform that creates do-it-yourself mobile applications for several platforms. So if you do not know how to code and you have a mobile app idea you can easily implement it on your PC. It will compile mobile applications for iPhone, BlackBerry, J2ME, Symbian and Windows Mobile platforms.

To go in a bit Phonsai’s biography, it is developed by Bircom. The company is in this sector for the past 38 years. Phonsai is its R&D project developed by 6 team members and a successful result of $450,000 investment. Phonsai’s ease of developing mobile applications and perfect compatibility with 90% of existent cell phones is a boon to any corporation who is thinking to incline towards mobile world and can conveniently select the cell phone of their choice to target plus with a very reasonable cost.

Phonsai does not seem to believe in complicating things, for example while developing a normal mobile app one has to consider several variables like brand, operating systems, models, sub-models, screen dimensions, and the list goes on. As the number of the cell phones that you want your application to run increases, the process gets more complicated. Thus, if you want the app to be used for more than one type on cell phones, the more sets and variables you have to consider the making the process a real headache including the increase in expense and hard work for a particular simple mobile app.

As we already know that Phonsai is a cross-platform mobile development application, it is designed for and average PC user to follow up his idea of a good app without any knowledge of coding. Once can just copy paste the contents such as images, content, links, sound, phone call shortcuts, etc. in the screen sizes of developer’s choice. It provides a unique feature of bulk sending where once can send his application to multiple cell phones. After the application is sent, you can receive an acknowledgment report about the people who received it and the phone models they downloaded the app into.

Highlights of the Application

Develop mobile app in just 10 minutes

As you know this app eliminates the trickiness involved in developing a multi- platform mobile application, it would hardly take 10 minutes to develop an app of your own choice against the norm of 1 to 1.5 months that a usual application take.

Easy as Blogging

As we all know a few years ago even a website development was an expert’s work, we never have thought that we could build a website by simply dragging and dropping the contents of our choice. Today technology has provided us opportunities to get our website idea into working without any professional help. Similarly mobile app development was not so simple before Phonsai. It is providing us the same opportunity for mobile platforms, to develop the games we want to play, to work on apps we think missing on our mobile. It provides users at any level to develop apps by simply copying and pasting the contents. They can create mobile catalogs, company descriptions, brochures, operating manuals and photo albums and even mobile city guides if they like.

Cost for Mobile App

If you wonder the cost may be unaffordable for a wonderful app that Phonsai is, you are wrong, the app is free plus you can develop applications which are compatible with 2,000 different patterns and only pay for the SMS (Wappush) fee for sending your applications to different mobile phones. Unlike in normal cases when to order even the simplest mobile app software would cost $8,000 - $12,000 and the phone models to be targeted wil not be more than 3- 10.

Large user base

You should not be surprised to know that popularity of Phonsai is increasing day by day. As we know the cost of using any application depends on number of people the application is sent to. Statistics show that by the end of 2011, over 1000 corporate will be using Phonsai for their mobile applications development.

Features in a Nutshell
  1. Create mobile applications without coding : Phonsai lets you design your own mobile applications without any programming skills. Phonsai is one of the first examples of User Generated Content for mobile platforms.
  2. Just Copy / Paste your content : Just copying and pasting the content of your choice lets you create your own customizable app. While doing so the Phonsai emulator will show you the preview of your apps look and feel in different screens and screen sizes.
  3. As easy as 1,2 and3 : Create, send and report : While creating a mobile app you do have to worry about the compatibility, as it will provide full compatibility by creating different versions of your app for various mobile phones. Further the delivery module will send back to you an acknowledgment detailed report when you’re app is sent to different mobile phones
  4. Widespread brand/model support : Till now your Phonsai application can run on approximately 2000 different models. Further, to its compatibility list , the team is adding new devices everyday.
  5. Phonsai Emulator : The clear Phonsai emulator lets you preview your application in different screen sizes and screens as you go on adding the contents to your app.
  6. Easy Sign Up : Phonsai has a super easy sign-up where the detailed details of the user are not required, you just have to enter your email address and phone number for your free account with 5 credits and you will receive your account details to your phone number by SMS and instructional video link to your email address.
Tutorial to create a Mobile App using Phonsai

Here is a quick and brief tutorial to get started:
  1. Download Intel AppUp Store from Intel AppUp Center.
  2. After installing Intel AppUp on your system, open Intel App up and search for the application Phonsai. Next click on 'Download' to download the app for 'Free'.

  3. After download is completed, launch the application. Click on 'Create demo account' or 'Buy an Account' to get started. The account details will be messaged to you on your phone number.

  4. After you login, you will be greeted with a welcome screen. Click on Projects to start.

  5. From here you can create a new project or explore and edit the current projects. Click on New Project to create a new project. Give the name and description of the project. When the project is created you can see it under Project Tab.

  6. The complete process to create a web app via Phonsai can be divided into 3 part : Create, Send and Report
    • Create
      1. Creating Mobile App is easy, you just need to copy and paste your text, web / wap links, images and phone call links.

      2. Imagine your structure and start creating your application. You can start with a sample application to learn the basics. Create your application using 6 main items in Phonsai:
        • Menu Tree
        • Text
        • Images
        • Internet Links
        • Phone Call Shortcuts
        • Shortcuts

          You can see a sample structure of Application created for Tech Guru.

      3. In the emulator window you can see your application page preview. Phonsai emulator will let you preview how your application will look in different phone screens and screen sizes.

      4. You can create splash screens and various pages and menu in the same way.

      5. After you have designed your app, it's time to publish it. Go to the projects tab and hit publish after selecting your project from the list.

    • Send
      1. Once you finished creating your application, goto View Menu > Delivery and write the phone number of the people you want to send the application.

      2. You can also send your application to multiple cellphones with the help of bulk sending option.It is possible to get the phone numbers from a list in the form of Excel or txt file stored on your computer.
      3. Your application will be on their phone in a flash.
      4. Your target audience will receive a wap-push message to download the application.

    • Report
      1. You can also generate report using Phonsai report module.
      2. To open Phonsai report module, go to View menu > Reports.
      3. The report includes who installed your application, when your application is downloaded, on which phone models your application is downloaded, etc.

      4. You can save the report for further analysis and recording.
Video tutorials for Phonsai
  1. Login Phonsai: http://www.vimeo.com/11463650
  2. Create Application: http://www.vimeo.com/11463605
  3. Add and Edit items to your mobile app: http://www.vimeo.com/11463441
  4. Publish and send your mobile app: http://www.vimeo.com/11463658
  5. Receive reports (who downloaded your mobile app?) http://www.vimeo.com/11463672
Phonsai is a gem application on Intel App Up for those who don’t want to waste time and money developing a mobile app. Try it, you will love it!
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