Option 1: Custom iPhone & Android App Development

October 1, 2009

If you have a dedicated budget (typically $25,000 and up) and you want a fully customized, native iPhone application, you’ve come to the right place. We have a dedicated, talented team of iPhone and Android developers ready to build your custom app. We are the rockstars of the mobile app building community, with a client list that includes:

The Washington Post
Gannett’s ShopLocal
Politico
Kohls
Classified Ventures
Atmosphere/BBDO
Qorvis
GoMobo / Burger King
Fishbowl
Rock Creek Strategic Marketing
The National Guard

If you’re interested in having us give you a quote for your app concept, simply fill out the information at right or call us at 202.391.0347.

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Option 2: Use our app-building service, AppMakr

September 30, 2009

Now, you have options. You can still leverage the mobile distribution channel without a dedicated mobile budget. Using our AppMakr.com service, you can build award-winning applications for just $199. Visit AppMakr’s pricing page for more information, or click here to learn more about AppMakr.

AppMakr makes low-cost, wicked-fast native mobile mashup apps out of multiple types of XML feeds (RSS, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, etc) or your API’s. Here are a few examples:

MinOnline magazine raved about our app (even comparing it favorably to the CNN app), saying “arguably, the mobile version of TheAtlanticWire is even better than the Web site”.

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Keep it Simple, Syndication: Using RSS for high ROI Mobile Apps

August 6, 2009

Here at PointAbout, we love RSS because it helps you build great apps yourself!

Here’s what RSS does, in plain English:

AppMakr compiles your existing RSS feeds into a tidy little app with graphics and icons you customize yourself. This can be done in under a minute, with the option to purchase the app you’ve just built for a fraction of the average market cost– you can even start using it right away. Here’s the basic app you can make using AppMakr when you pull an RSS feed from content you’ve already created (or are continuing to update), like a WordPress blog.

On top of this, if you meet with us on a consulting basis, we’ll charge an hourly rate and our development team can customize your app to taste with graphics, colors, and even unique functions you request.

At PointAbout, our goal is to mobilize the web using AppMakr. It’s simpler than ever to harness the power of RSS and build brand presence across mobile platforms like iPhone and Android.

Want to learn more about RSS? Check out these great PointAbout articles!

An Intro to RSS and How You Can Use it To Do Awesome Things With Mobile

We often get clients who want to create mobile applications such as walking tours, location-sensitive audio tours, or the like. In this post, we show you how your site + RSS + AppMakr can bring that killer app to life. Think of RSS as the “telephone line” that’s going to transport your data from a computer server to the phone. It keeps you from having to cram your whole site into a tiny mobile browser by letting us extract all the relevant information.

Learn how we mobilize your content via feeds you already publish.

PointAbout has developed a way for you to mobilize your content quickly, using feeds you already publish, such as RSS or XML feeds. Check out the video, plus screenshots of other apps we’ve published using this method.

Don’t publish feeds yet? Here’s a guide to the Easy, Medium, and Difficult ways to RSS-ify your website.

Did you know creating a feed is as simple as signing up for a WordPress account? Or, if you’d rather, pick from several other options– there are plenty of ways to pull an RSS feed out of existing content online!

Using GeoRSS in PointAbout apps

PointAbout utilizes GeoRSS to create location-aware RSS feeds. The best way to set a GeoRSS feed up is to have the mobile app (i.e., the iPhone app) send its lat + long coordinates to a server, and have the server crunch the data– here’s how.

Here’s what the future of GeoRSS apps might look like.

Welcome to the future, where a metatagged, “augmented reality” you can only see through your iPhone could guide you to the nearest subway stop, or into the waiting arms of your future spouse.