Here’s a scenario: you’re a mobile app designer, and you’re working with a client. You’re almost finished with the project. You get a call. They’re happy with the app, but they want the design to “pop” more.
You stand up from your desk and exit the office. You leave the building and start walking. You never return to work again.
That’s one way to handle it. Another way is Fuse Mobile.
Fuse is a UX toolkit for mobile developers and designers. Using their Mac or Windows app, you can quickly create native UIs and see the design update in real-time on multiple devices.
Imagine you need to update the size of a profile picture in your app; using the Fuse tool, resizing the image on your desktop instantly reflects the changes on an iOS or Android device.
Instead of using Java or Swift to build user interfaces, you’re writing XML and Javascript. The tool allows you to define layouts, animations, interactions, response to gestures, native controls, and more. Because it was written native from the ground-up, you have access to most native features with iOS and Android.
When it’s time to deploy, developers can output to production-ready native code.
Moving from a prototype to a working product is expensive and difficult, especially when clients ask for the moon. Without Fuse, teams have to build for multiple platforms, with designers and developers using different tools, and incongruous workflows. Making design updates often requires recompiling and a series of tedious tasks before being able to test on multiple devices. Fuse is trying to solve this problem by uniting designers and developers under one tool that allows teams to build UIs in real-time and with native code.
The company was founded by CEO Anders Lassen and has raised $7 million to date. The tool is now available as an open beta for download via their website, following a year long closed beta.
SnapMunk
Any time that you can make it easier for developers to whip apps up like no tomorrow is a great time. Developers work hard with UX and when they are making apps from scratch, the easier it is the better. This looks like a great thing!
Sensational service. I could see how being an app developer could be infuriating because of the divide between what it takes to develop an app and a customer’s expectations of wanting changes as soon as possible. From a developer’s perspective it may be a very small change that would require a huge change in the code, but they don’t know that. Then again, look at it from the customer’s perspective. They are paying huge dollars for a service and they want it done right and to specs that they deliver. They deserve to get the product they are paying for. A service like this is great to bridge the divide between both sides. Great stuff!