4 ms·

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.

by 10char 14y ago

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!

tehwebguy 14y ago
There's definitely a need for this. Right now I'm around 50% the way through building a web app version of what I need, which will either be "good enough" or just serve as a prototype. If my v1 isn't native my v2 will be, but I'd rather just go for it with a tool like this.
gadders 14y ago
The email sign-up doesn't work on IE 8 :-(
- lem72 14y ago
  It didn't work for me on Firefox as well kept saying: Something went wrong :( Refresh and try again Refreshed, tried again, same thing.
  - killahpriest 14y ago
    Nothing seems to work in FF these days. =/
ablefire 14y ago
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?
- tehwebguy 14y ago
  This looks very cool, I'm not seeing any TabBar support though.
  - tehwebguy 14y ago
    Just got a tweet from Appsify following this comment: they DO support tabs.
lbotos 14y ago
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?
rogerbinns 14y ago
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.
- witoldc 14y ago
  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.

by 10char 14y ago

tehwebguy 14y ago

There's definitely a need for this. Right now I'm around 50% the way through building a web app version of what I need, which will either be "good enough" or just serve as a prototype. If my v1 isn't native my v2 will be, but I'd rather just go for it with a tool like this.

gadders 14y ago

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

lem72 14y ago
It didn't work for me on Firefox as well kept saying: Something went wrong :( Refresh and try again Refreshed, tried again, same thing.
- killahpriest 14y ago
  Nothing seems to work in FF these days. =/

ablefire 14y ago

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?

tehwebguy 14y ago
This looks very cool, I'm not seeing any TabBar support though.
- tehwebguy 14y ago
  Just got a tweet from Appsify following this comment: they DO support tabs.

lbotos 14y ago

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?

rogerbinns 14y ago

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.

witoldc 14y ago
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.