That’s not the goal of Jimu, a new rapid development tool for Android apps that’s currently fundraising via Kickstarter.

“We want to make it possible for a lot more people to create apps,” Jimu founder Linkton Ye told me yesterday via Skype. “Everyone should be able to play with the software that surrounds us.”

But Ye doesn’t want to just build a framework for the n00bs: those of us who can’t program in Java and build our own apps. That’s part of the goal, but not all of it. The rest of it is all about those software developers who are already building Android apps today and dealing with the surprisingly repetitive and challenging tasks for each and every app they build.

The challenge lies in the fact that while there are many great tools and frameworks to help non-developers build apps — Andromo, AppyPie, AppsGeyser, and TheAppBuilder come to mind   —  they tend to be a little cookie cutter. Pick a style, select some features, choose a content feed, subscribe to Twitter updates, import a photo stream.

“We want to give everyone a jumpstart to create apps, but still leave room for developers to customize however they want,” Ye says. “There’s a lot of frameworks to let non-developers create apps, but it’s just a form to fill in. All their apps look pretty much the same, and you can’t customize very much.”

Source: Jimu

One app already built in Jimu that integrates Flickr, Google Maps, other web services, and local caching.

So Jimu not only enables drag-and-drop creation of app functionality, it also creates clean, commented source code for all your apps … which those with a technical bent can then take and customize or extend even more. At a minimum, then, it’s a rapid prototyping tool that actually works, rather than being a clickable model, a wireframe, or a set of screenshots.

Jimu does this by via what Ye calls “blocks:” chunks of code that insert objects like pictures, text, buttons, and actions. The framework is extensible, and the team is building new blocks continuously. Besides the basic necessities of an app, some of the higher-level ones include the ability to take a picture with the phone’s camera and use the image, the ability to connect to other devices via NFC, and the ability to take over a phone’s Bluetooth connection.

But it’s still early days in the project — hence the Kickstarter campaign.

“We wanted to see how many people are actually excited about this idea,” Ye told me. “Right now it’s a prototype, and we want to build a minimum viable product, so this is this is basically marketing research, and it will provide some capital to fund the project.”

The team is trying to raise $50,000 on Kickstarter. With 23 days to go, 54 backers have contributed $1,707, so there’s a significant way to go.

Assuming the Kickstarter works, Ye thinks they’ll have enough capital to finish the product. And having a successful fundraiser in his back pocket will help Jimu find additional funding. The ultimate goal is a subscription-based service by which developers who want to use Jimu pay for one or more tiers of service … and a programming blocks marketplace where developers who create a useful block can re-sell it to other mobile programmers.

Will the project get funded? Ye is optimistic.

“There are a lot of hardware and game companies doing well on Kickstarter,” he said. “For software it’s harder … but we still think it’s possible.”

Image credits: Jimu

Disclosure: one of the members of the Jimu team, Aras Balali, is a member in my coworking space.

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Big Data and Predictive/Real-time Analytics startups: Are you looking to jumpstart development & accelerate market traction? Sign up for the SAP Startup Focus program to receive technology, support, resources and community to help you develop new applications on SAP HANA, a cutting edge database platform. Get started here, and enter promo code “VB2013″ on the form.

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What about native-only solutions?

Only 15 percent of developers would go native-only when building an app for multiple platforms, a stat that might be a little shocking to those witnessed Facebook famously and loudly abandoning HTML5 development last year in favor of a faster, smoother, better native app experience.

See the infographic: What developers do with HTML5

“Most developers were not impacted by that Facebook decision,” Kendo UI EVP Todd Anglin told me yesterday. “One thing that gets overlooked often in the Facebook news is that Facebook hasn’t abandoned HTML5 at all … just changed their use of it.”

In fact, the new Facebook app includes a lot of HTML5, Anglin said, adding that Facebook has said that HTML5 makes it faster to develop and maintain multiple apps.

Source: KendoUI

Developers who are actively using HTML5

HTML5 on the desktop

HTML5 on mobile is nothing new. But what about HTML5 on the desktop?

It turns out that HTML5 could be huge on the desktop, with 66 percent of developers interested in developing HTML5 apps for Windows 8, almost half interesting in building apps for Google’s Chrome OS, and another third thinking about developing apps for the emerging Firefox OS.

“It’s the final frontier for where HTML5 should go,” Anglin said. “And it begs the question … why don’t we think of this as an equal option for a PC?”

On a desktop PC, HTML5 would not be limited by a relatively puny mobile processor, either, meaning that developers could do even more with HTML5 video and interactivity. What that means, Anglin said, is that you could have a complete unified strategy for all mobile operating systems and desktop systems at one time … that uses the same codebase and the same developer skill set.

That’s fairly mind-blowing, considering where we’ve come from.

Source: KendoUI

HTML5 for the desktop

The ‘one + HTML5′ strategy

A growing strategic solution to the challenge of multiple platforms seems to be the “one + HTML5″ plan, in which developers build one app for a key target platform in native code — although it may also contain some HTML5 — and one app for all the other desired-but-not-core platforms in HTML5.

Typically, the “one” is iOS, although it could also be Android, and the HTML5 solution is for BlackBerry, Windows Phone, and any other desired platforms.

Still, given a choice, most developers would either do a pure HTML5 app for all platforms, or a hybrid app: HTML5 core, with native wrapping on each targeted platform.

Source: Kendo UI

Native vs HTML5 vs Hybrid apps

The hype cycle — HTML5 isn’t overhyped anymore

Only a quarter of developers now believe that HTML5 is overhyped, while almost half strongly believe it is not.

“Developers are now beyond the hype curve,” Anglin said. “Even though some developers think that  HTML5 is overhyped, that doesn’t mean they don’t think it’s a platform that is both usable and important.”

78 percent of developers now say HTML5 is appropriate for building mobile apps, and 68 percent say it’s appropriate for all developers building any kind of app.

iOS and BlackBerry: both hard to develop for

While iOS is a top platform, developers say it’s difficult to develop for. In fact, iOS ranked just under the notoriously challenging BlackBerry for development difficulty. Sixty-four percent of developers said that BlackBerry was challenging — and having developed two apps for the platform myself, I agree — while 69 percent said that iOS was difficult.

Objective-C is not the newest or widest-known language in the world, of course, and Apple does put a few hurdles in developers’ paths as well.

In contrast, half of developers thought that Windows 8 was easy to develop for, and Windows Phone 8 was not far behind. Android, meanwhile, was split: 26 percent said it was very easy, while 29 percent said it was very hard.

“What’s surprising to us is not that it’s difficult, but that’s it almost twice as difficult to work with as Android,” Anglin said. “We would have thought developers would rank Android equal to iOS or even harder, since there are so many more devices in the Android ecosystem.”

Source: Kendo UI

Mobile platforms: how difficult?

photo credit: brucelawson via photopin cc

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Big Data and Predictive/Real-time Analytics startups: Are you looking to jumpstart development & accelerate market traction? Sign up for the SAP Startup Focus program to receive technology, support, resources and community to help you develop new applications on SAP HANA, a cutting edge database platform. Get started here, and enter promo code “VB2013″ on the form.

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Updated at 4:30 p.m. Pacific with appMobi’s response.

Intel has acquired appMobi, a company whose tools help mobile app developers work with HTML5.

Billed as an “HTML5 development ecosystem,” this small startup based in Lancaster, Penn., offers a number of solutions for companies looking to build mobile applications that run in the browser, including features like user authentication, “touch to buy,” push notifications, user analytics, and on-device app updates.

ReadWriteWeb, which named appMobi “the most promising company of 2012,“ reported that Intel “has gutted” the firm to acquire its tools and staff in an effort to build its own suite of developer tools for mobile apps, turning appMobi into a “pure-play cloud services provider, offering developers backend service support for HTML5 mobile applications.”

In a response, appMobi, released more information about the deal and said that “appMobi is very much alive and kicking coming out of this transaction.” Intel has acquired the HTML5 developer tools and build system and hired the tools-related technical staff, but appMobi will continue as a “strong, high growth company, operating its existing mobile app cloud services business.”

Intel will now own and manage the HTML5 development tools, and appMobi will focus on “delivering cross platform solutions for mobile app engagement and monetization on all platforms.”

Photo Credit: USACEpublicaffairs/Flickr