I have been working with a development team to create an Iphone application over the last 6 months or so. What is great about the Iphone is that in Q1 of 2009 Apple reported that over 30 million people use their platform via the Iphone or the Ipod touch. After many hours of development and over $30,000 in development cost we are reaching the finish line for this application platform. The application is something like Facebooks application, but it can be used on anything including WordPress sites, Forums, etc. to allow your users to stay connected, read your blogs/forum post, make new post, and so on. What I’m thinking about doing is launching a side project to offer the application to webmasters. The cool part is that you will not have to know how to write objective C, or own a mac, the platform is web based and can create, compile, and brand your application for you with only cut and paste, and a couple plug-ins on your site. Additional if one wanted to they can sell the application in the Apple store, or give it away for free. That said I wanted to get some feedback on how many people would be interested in this product and would you be willing to pay around $998 to compile your very own Iphone application for your website without having to code it, own a mac, or pay developers thousands like I did?
Without screenshots, a demo web-interface or even mockups sketched on a napkin, I'm not going to fork over a thousand bucks for an application that will join an already inundated fad that is already jumping the shark. And I'm not referring to the popularity of the iphone, I'm referring to the get-rich-quick-apps that are losing ground every day. Add to this the fact that similar web-based "fill-in-the-blank" custom applications are already being developed by various companies for free and will soon be released. Apple has already stated that they envision everyone creating and sharing their own app with the same ease people can make their own "pages" on myspace.