Max Katz

Tiggr is a Web-based IDE for building mobile Web and native apps. Today I’d like to givel you 14 reasons why this new-of-a-kind IDE deserves your attention.

1. Mobile Apps IDE in the Cloud – Access Your App Anytime, Anywhere

Tiggr is a mobile apps IDE in the cloud. There is nothing to download. You can work on your app anytime, anywhere. Such a Web-based IDE has been every developer’s “dream” for a long time.

2. Build with jQuery Mobile Components

Prototype and build the UI with popular jQuery Mobile components. jQuery Mobile is a cross-platform and cross-device mobile framework. It has already been tested to work on many many devices and platforms, so you don’t have to do it.

3. Visual Editor

A powerful and easy-to-use visual editor. Just drag and drop the components on to the phone image. You finally get a visual editor where design-time looks exactly the same as run-time. Try it.

4. Connect to Remote Services

A mobile app without data is not much fun. That’s why you can easily define services (REST/JSON and soon XML). Specify service inputs and outputs, and test the service right inside Tiggr.

5. Visual Mapping Between UI and Services

A service may require inputs and always returns data. Tiggr comes with a super easy way to map input UI components to service inputs and outputs.

6. Test the App Instantly – Yes, Right in Browser

We know that once you drag and drop your first components into the phone you will want to see how the app looks. The app can be instantly tested in desktop browser or mobile browser. To make it easy to open the app URL on your mobile device you can email the app link or scan a QR code. Need to test a native app on a mobile device? No problem. Export the app as Android binary (.apk) file (or soon as an iOS binary).

7. Mobile Web vs. Native Apps – Who Cares?

Tiggr makes this argument moot. With Tiggr, you can just as easily create mobile Web applications using all the latest HTML5/JavaScript/CSS umbrella technologies as you can create native apps. To generate native apps, Tiggr uses the popular PhoneGap library to give you an app for any device. PhoneGap wraps your HTML/JavaScript/CSS app inside a native wrapper giving you easy access to the underlying mobile platform for services such as GPS, camera, contacts, or whatever else is available via the native platform.

8. Share Your App

Need to show your mobile Web app to your boss, colleagues, or customer? No problem! Invite them as projects participants, or just make the app URL public and send them the URL.

Hey, why not follow the URL shown above and try this app right now? Click on http://gotiggr.com/preview/16230/, and you’ll see something like this (try it on your mobile device):

If you go to our Twitter Search example app at http://gotiggr.com/preview/16536, you’ll see something like this (try it on your mobile device):

9. Collaborate

We understand the many projects today are done by remote teams. That’s why we made it possible to invite any number of users to collaborate during the development of the app.

10. Chat

With the built-in chat, you can communicate with any of your team members while working on a project without leaving Tiggr.

12. Easily Add Events and Actions

Without any need for JavaScript programming, you can add events such as onclick and onload to various UI components and then define actions for these events such as navigation, opening a pop-up panel, or invoking a service. With events and actions, you are able to simply create real interactive mobile apps.

12. We Know You Love JavaScript

But wait. We know you actually love JavaScript. With Tiggr, you have the full freedom to extend the capabilities of your app by adding any custom JavaScript you want.

13. Themes

Create and test new themes instantly. Tiggr comes with a visual theme editor in which you can test and view changes instantly.

14. Export

We understand that you may want to continue developing the project outside Tiggr. That’s why we have export features. Today, you can export the project as an Android PhoneGap source project or an Android binary debug (.apk) file. For the future, we are working on an iOS project and also an Android binary ready for Android Market publishing.

15. It’s Easy, Fast, and Fun

Building a mobile app with Tiggr will take a fraction of the time it would take you to do the same thing by hand. Being able to instantly test your app is one of the coolest features. You will be using it all the time. If you don’t believe us, just try one of our step-by-step tutorials: http://help.gotiggr.com/getting-started.