iPhone Dev Tool: Mobile Application CMS

sashthebash · 10-30-2010, 04:28 AM

I am an iPhone developer myself and frequently had to include some dynamically loaded content into different apps. Content like a tip of the day, store locations of a retail chain, cocktail recipes etc.

I think this is always way too much effort. I either have to create a small web application with a database myself to manage and serve the content in JSON or XML or configure a large open source CMS to do this (which is a pain). And I have to host and maintain those systems, which costs time and money.

My hosted solution is cheaper, flexible and allows developers to configure many different data sets. Your own editors can manage the content for these data sets and you can then easily load that content into your mobile apps with JSON (with search and advanced queries). You could also load the JSON into your website with JSONP or into a desktop app, but this is currently not the focus.

Basically a CMS for non-HTML applications. I already developed a prototype and a landing page for this service. Before I continue with further development I would love to get some feedback from fellow developers.

What do you think of this idea? Would you use it? I am looking forward to your comments. Thanks.

Mobile Application CMS: StorageRoom

tychop · 10-30-2010, 06:47 AM

Are you trying to sell your solution here?
P.s. Why go JSON or XML when you can use binary plists? It parses around 40 times faster.

sashthebash · 10-30-2010, 07:27 AM

I don't want to sell this here! It is not even finished yet, you can only see the landing page and it is not possible to sign up. I only posted the URL as it contains more information about the idea. I would really just highly appreciate some feedback from developers if this makes sense at all.

I wonder if I am the only person having this problem and if I would create a solution for something that nobody needs or if developers often encounter this problem. Of course I asked all the developers I know in real life, but my social circle is limited so I wanted to ask the question here. And the response from friends is usually biased toward pleasing you, I want to find out the truth, so I would love to get some responses from strangers

.

Currently I am using JSON as I also want the service to be usable from other platforms such as Android or Blackberry devices, so that you can reuse your content across different platforms. But having binary plists is a good idea for iPhone applications, maybe I can offer this in addition to JSON.

Thanks for your feedback, highly appreciated!