03-09-2015, 07:35 PM
Well guyz, I decided to take the dive and here's MY Review of the App Builder.
After purchasing it last week. I started to play around with this. I had some ideas in mind.
I started off by attempting to make a simple Radio app, and it was a bit difficult to get it to recognise the stream links that I was adding. It was a painful experience. My plan was to get a few streams working and see how well the app looks and works and then I can work to get the rest of the streams and other stuff working. But, after a trial and error and playing with it for a day I was able to get a few streams working. And the app was ready to be tested, I loaded the app in my phone. (btw I tested a few more apps after these)
Well, the good news is the streams worked.
Now the bad news, plz notice the app tutorials it just builds the app in a few minutes and that's it. It doesn't show you how the app looks and its functionality in a real Phone. Not to mention, the app looks very ordinary, maybe we can work a bit with the photoshop and make it look a bit better. Sad to say, the looks of the app was back from 'Android 2.3' days. Very unpolished and mediocre. I was pretty disappointed by the looks/feels.
Now comes the 2nd (more important) bad news: The Functionality
I've tested Streams, Pictures, Business and RSS feeds. So my review will be limited to those themes. This was a major disappointment. I was hoping that this would at least be working even though the app doesn't look great.
Here're my experience:
Streams: There are only a few templates for them and they only recognise only certain types of links. I've emailed support with 5 different links and after 48 hours I got a reply from them saying only one of them will work for streaming music. No other explanation, technical details or direction was provided with the support email. The stream would work but the problem is that you do have to go inside one more level to play stream X, now if you want to play Stream Y you will have to go back, and go inside another level to play Stream Y. This is bad user expereince and reminds me of the good old Android 2.3 days.
More importantly, you do not see a control of the Radio stream anywhere once you're out of that screen/app. So the user have to go back inside the APP>StreamList_page>Station_page where you're playing the music from to stop the music. Imagine how your user will feel (Uninstall?). A simple taskbar control is just standard now a days with a music player, if not at least within the app there should be a bar somewhere for that.... SMH
Pictures: There are a few templates for this, but again the functionality is just aweful. I built an app for native android and the app went out of proportion to my screen. There are stuff it doesn't do it says or it does it so horribly that you wouldn't keep your own app in your phone.
Business: It builds OK business apps, but the looks are pretty ordinary. Boxy edges and feels pretty extinct for todays appworld -IMO. If I see an app like that in the market, I'd be like wtf, they need to update this ASAP.
RSS: This was really important for me and after playing with this for a at least 15+ hours. And testing on my phone(Nexus 5) I was just disappointed to see the results, I've tried at least 8 different feeds and they do not do a decent job. The functionality was horrendous, sometimes if I click on the back button from a news article, it'd exit the app altogether. There were 1 or 2 feeds out of 8 which worked somewhat OK.
Conclusion: This would be a great option like 4-5 years ago. I remember when I was using a 2.2 or 2.3 Android phone, some apps were so frustrating and then some apps would work OK. But for todays day and age if you throw some crappy and buggy app up in the market its not gonna stick. If the user experience is somewhat bad, people will uninstall in a heartbeat and move on to the next on line. If we're to make money off of this app then you'd have to build something that actually works. If you plan to monetise from Admob its not gonna work either, cause of bad user experience people are eventually gonna uninstall the app. The only thing this might remotely work is only if you're to make apps for local business who just needs an app with limited functionality. This was just my experience after using it for about 40+ hours. Some of you may have a better experience, if you do plz share with the community.
I hope they come out with some videos and fixes where they actually show building different kinds of apps and follow up showing how the app really looks and works. Until then my score is 1 out of 5.
Plz add Rep if you think this review was helpful.
After purchasing it last week. I started to play around with this. I had some ideas in mind.
I started off by attempting to make a simple Radio app, and it was a bit difficult to get it to recognise the stream links that I was adding. It was a painful experience. My plan was to get a few streams working and see how well the app looks and works and then I can work to get the rest of the streams and other stuff working. But, after a trial and error and playing with it for a day I was able to get a few streams working. And the app was ready to be tested, I loaded the app in my phone. (btw I tested a few more apps after these)
Well, the good news is the streams worked.
Now the bad news, plz notice the app tutorials it just builds the app in a few minutes and that's it. It doesn't show you how the app looks and its functionality in a real Phone. Not to mention, the app looks very ordinary, maybe we can work a bit with the photoshop and make it look a bit better. Sad to say, the looks of the app was back from 'Android 2.3' days. Very unpolished and mediocre. I was pretty disappointed by the looks/feels.
Now comes the 2nd (more important) bad news: The Functionality
I've tested Streams, Pictures, Business and RSS feeds. So my review will be limited to those themes. This was a major disappointment. I was hoping that this would at least be working even though the app doesn't look great.
Here're my experience:
Streams: There are only a few templates for them and they only recognise only certain types of links. I've emailed support with 5 different links and after 48 hours I got a reply from them saying only one of them will work for streaming music. No other explanation, technical details or direction was provided with the support email. The stream would work but the problem is that you do have to go inside one more level to play stream X, now if you want to play Stream Y you will have to go back, and go inside another level to play Stream Y. This is bad user expereince and reminds me of the good old Android 2.3 days.
More importantly, you do not see a control of the Radio stream anywhere once you're out of that screen/app. So the user have to go back inside the APP>StreamList_page>Station_page where you're playing the music from to stop the music. Imagine how your user will feel (Uninstall?). A simple taskbar control is just standard now a days with a music player, if not at least within the app there should be a bar somewhere for that.... SMH
Pictures: There are a few templates for this, but again the functionality is just aweful. I built an app for native android and the app went out of proportion to my screen. There are stuff it doesn't do it says or it does it so horribly that you wouldn't keep your own app in your phone.
Business: It builds OK business apps, but the looks are pretty ordinary. Boxy edges and feels pretty extinct for todays appworld -IMO. If I see an app like that in the market, I'd be like wtf, they need to update this ASAP.
RSS: This was really important for me and after playing with this for a at least 15+ hours. And testing on my phone(Nexus 5) I was just disappointed to see the results, I've tried at least 8 different feeds and they do not do a decent job. The functionality was horrendous, sometimes if I click on the back button from a news article, it'd exit the app altogether. There were 1 or 2 feeds out of 8 which worked somewhat OK.
Conclusion: This would be a great option like 4-5 years ago. I remember when I was using a 2.2 or 2.3 Android phone, some apps were so frustrating and then some apps would work OK. But for todays day and age if you throw some crappy and buggy app up in the market its not gonna stick. If the user experience is somewhat bad, people will uninstall in a heartbeat and move on to the next on line. If we're to make money off of this app then you'd have to build something that actually works. If you plan to monetise from Admob its not gonna work either, cause of bad user experience people are eventually gonna uninstall the app. The only thing this might remotely work is only if you're to make apps for local business who just needs an app with limited functionality. This was just my experience after using it for about 40+ hours. Some of you may have a better experience, if you do plz share with the community.
I hope they come out with some videos and fixes where they actually show building different kinds of apps and follow up showing how the app really looks and works. Until then my score is 1 out of 5.
Plz add Rep if you think this review was helpful.