Build your own iPhone app

With the Manchester Evening News launching its own iPhone app, other newspapers may be considering their own next move in attracting wider audiences.

A report by Business Week has highlighted how easy it now is to follow in the MEN's footsteps. For those who are tech-savvy, there are dozens of guides on how to create your own iPhone app on Youtube.

But what do you do if you're not so confident?

According to Business Week, there has been a new crop of services to help non-techies and those who may have concerns about quality, distribution and security of DIY methods, to create their very own iPhone app, no matter what business they're in.

Led by the likes of Swebapps.com and MyAppBuilder.com, they can help create the apps often in less time and for less money than it would for the company to develop the app from scratch.

Clients could create downloadable games, travel guides, quizzes, blog feeds and, as with the MEN, breaking news headlines, sometimes as simply as by plugging specs into online templates.

Business Week describes how the already expanding market for these apps is likely to grow at a faster pace. It states how the number of apps downloaded through the likes of the Apple App store and Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Marketplace for Mobile may surge to 18.7 billion in 2014, from about 491 million at the end of 2008, according to consultant Ovum. That may result in sales of nealry £3.5 billion in 2014, up from over £222 million last year, Ovum says.

(via cybersoc.com)