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WSJ profiles Letterpress creator Loren Brichter, the 'high priest of app design'
Here at TUAW, we're big fans of Loren Brichter, the app developer behind Tweetie (which eventually became the official Twitter app) and the great word game Letterpress. But the Wall Street Journal appears to have just discovered the dev -- in a profile that appeared over the weekend, the paper calls him a "high priest of app design and an increasingly influential tastemaker." It's true, Brichter and his designs have been lauded by devs, users and even Apple. His Tweetie app originated the "pull to refresh" idea (where you pull a list down off the top of the screen to refresh it from the servers), since implemented by Facebook, Pinterest and Apple itself. Brichter also helped innovate with side menus (as seen in the Facebook app), as well as what the WSJ calls the "cell swipe," where you can swipe across a list item to reveal more controls and buttons. The WSJ says that Brichter is now working on "an arcade game," something that will require him to build out more of his own technology. In general, it sounds like Brichter's got the freedom (and the willpower) to just take it easy and do what he wants to do -- he freely offers advice to other developers, and even says that he's happy to see other people use features he's designed, "as long as they aren't a d---." As high priests go, we're happy to have Brichter helping lead the cult of Mac.
Click-and-drag iPhone app creation for business
Ever want to design an iPhone app but have no coding skills whatsoever? Not to worry; several companies are offering click-and-drag iPhone app creation. App Press has a service that allows the user to upload custom images and assemble those images into the layout of an app. Once you've added your images and text, the App Press team will assemble your app and submit it to the App Store for you. Prices can be steep, however. App Press charges a monthly fee ranging from US$15-99 for access to its CMS designer tool. After that, a one-time iTunes developer setup fee, including three months of free app creation or issue publishing will cost you another $1500. You can see example's of App Press-designed apps here and here. Another company called Appirio offers a framework that allows businesses to easily deploy custom apps to its employees or clients. Appirio's software package is also a click-and-drag one that produces iPhone and iPad apps that are linked to Salesforce.com's cloud-based systems. The cloud-based linkage allows businesses to push out updates to their apps without the need to redeploy the apps or the data the apps contain. In addition to letting users create click-and-drag apps, Appirio also offers plenty of templates for field survey apps, time and action-tracking apps, location-based apps and search and display apps. Currently there is no set pricing for app creation through Appirio, but interested parties can contact the company here. Finally, Nov8rix delivers a 'fan site' app framework that's designed for creative artists, musicians, small businesses, faith communities and other organizations. It leverages the social media profile you or your organization already has, aggregating photos, news, events, tweets and media into an attractive package. The price is right, too; the company is running a limited-time offer of a basic subscription service (where you have to set up all your source content yourself) for only $19 a month per app. [hat tip to Fast Company]
