Yapp: Make Your Own iPhone and Android App With an App

Nov. 13, 2012 — -- The iPhone and Android phones each have over 700,000 apps available, but none was quite perfect for Karen Krygowski.

That changed when she discovered Yapp, signed up for the beta service, downloaded the app for her iPhone, and was able to make a personalized application for those attending her wedding in Dallas.

"We were able to easily update information as the weekend drew near, and utilized customization to feature fun things to do in Dallas, as the majority of our guests were traveling in from out of town," Krygowski , who is 36, told ABC News.

Today Yapp, an app to make apps, is coming out of that private beta stage and is available for everyone to use. And unlike some of the other app-making solutions it's really easy to use and requires little-to-no technology know-how.

"We have a team of engineers writing code so ordinary people don't have to. Yapp is the easiest way to create and publish a mobile application, many times in minutes," Maria Seidman, the CEO and co-founder of Yapp, told ABC News in an interview in the basement of her New York City house. It is in that basement-turned-office that a team of six is building the app to let you build an app for an upcoming event.

And Seidman isn't just spewing off the usual tech marketing jargon about Yapp being easy to use. You can truly make an app within minutes. Or at least we did.

Visit Yapp.us, sign in with Facebook or make your own account, and you are ready to start designing your app. You can pick from a set of pre-set templates with different backgrounds and colors and start customizing for your event. You can easily put in a schedule, a feed of photos, and even bring in Tweets from a specific Twitter feed. When you are done you can invite your friends to the app.

The app isn't published to Apple's App Store or Google's Play store. You invite people to use the app via email and they will then they will be prompted to download Yapp on their phones. The app you have created will appear in their Yapp Box – or a container folder in the Yapp app on their phone. Unfortunately, you cannot add a Yapp app directly to the homescreen of a phone right now.

Of course, that means that your friends have to go through another step of downloading Yapp, but ABC News spoke to a number of beta testers and none of them expressed problems with getting their friends or event attendees to download Yapp to get the app.

"All of the bridal party and most of the guest did download the app. Of course, there are always a few that didn't, but for the people who downloaded the app, they found it very useful," Liz Mo, who recently used the app for her destination wedding, told ABC News.

Making updates to your app is easy too. If you have to change the time of something on a schedule you can easily make an edit and update it with new images, say with images of the wedding after it has passed. You can send push notifications to your users to inform them of the change or addition.

Of course, Yapp isn't the first do-it-yourself app maker. But it is one of the simplest solutions.

AppMakr, lets you easily create apps via a web-editor, but it requires you to publish it via Apple's App Store, which means you have to go through the hassle of getting and paying for an iOS developer account. App Press is similar in that regard and also is a bit more complicated when it comes to designing with more tool options.

And that's really where Yapp is focused – on the tech novice looking to create event apps.

"There are a lot of wedding-related applications there are a lot of apps for conferences for classrooms and sports teams. Then there are some unusual events too, like a trip to Everest or sorority events," Seidman said.

And as apps begin to replace websites or at least complement them, for some, Yapps are starting to replace personal or event sites.

"After researching many options, we thought it seemed more innovative and easier to set up than a website," Krygowski said.

Yapp is free to download and use, though you can pay a fee for a concierge service, where Yapp experts will help customize the app for you. You can download the free app from the Apple App Store and Google Play today -- just don't get caught looking through those other 700,000 plus apps available in the store.