Hi there HN,
I am a 4th year computer science student, working full time as an iOS developer currently. Off the job I want to make an "app builder". What this means is I want a WISWYG app builder for non-programmers to be able to build somewhat complex apps for iOS and Android without any prior knowledge.
This will all be done as a web app in browser.<p>There currently are some app builders out there but most of them I feel are really hard to use, or provide with very little functionality.<p>What I aim is to have as many templates as possible. By templates I mean things such as Login/Register forms which users can just drag&drop into their app and customize afterwards, with the DB and functionality being already made for them in the background.
Another really good feature would be a user being able to upload the source code to their website and the appbuilder would then be able to convert that website into a fully functional app, which they can then modify to their needs.<p>My experience so far is based on some web apps, Android and iOS programming. For this reason I ask you the following questions:<p>1. What programming language should I go about using to make the task in hand easier to handle? I do ask this because I don't really have alot of experience in any of them, but I am a very skilled googler so I don't imagine having a hard time learning whatever you suggest.<p>2. How should I go about designing this?<p>3. Any tips you might give me to start this up<p>4. Any example "app builders" you can provide which you find have something awesome in them, and what exactly is that something awesome.<p>This is the first HN post, but I aim on making some sort of written progress on my programming maybe in the form of a blog. This is considering I am aiming for an open-source app at the end.
Thank you for your patience