Appception

Inspiration

Everyone and their dog have a big idea for the next hit app but most people lack the skills or resources to build them.
Having used some commercial app-building and prototyping tools in the past, we consider them inefficient as they don't reflect what the app is actually going to look like until it is run on a real device.

What it does

Appception allows you to build mobile apps on your iPhone through a simple drag and drop interface. While building your app, it is always running and it has its own behaviors and states. With Appception, anyone can build apps that use the device's sensors, persist and retrieve data locally or remotely, and interact with third party services. If you are pursuing more complex development, with just a tap of a button, we'll generate the source code of your app and send it you.

How we built it

We built Appception with React Native, a new open-source framework by Facebook for building mobile cross platform native apps using JavaScript. Using Redux, a predictable state container JavaScript library, we can handle the state of the user created app. We designed a software architecture that allowed us to effectively isolate the states of the app builder and the user generated app, within the same iOS app. (hence App-ception) Appception communicates with a server application in order to deliver a generated app to the user.

Challenges I ran into

We ran into a lot of challenges with creating barriers, keeping the building app and the dynamic app separate, while at the same time expanding the possible functionality that a user can build.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We're proud to have built a proof of concept app that, if deployed at scale will lower the barrier of entry for people to build apps that create value for their users. Everyone, including your grandma can build the dumb ideas that never got built because uber for cats actually isn’t a good idea.

What I learned

Today we all learned React Native. Although some of us were familiar before hand, creating an app with JavaScript was a whole new experience for some others.

What's next for Appception

Expanding the range of apps that you can build with Appception by providing more draggable components and integrations. Integrate deployment facilities within the Appception iPhone app to allow users to ship the app to beta users and push updates directly to their devices instantly.