I made my first app this month, and I think I'm hooked.

My app is a downloadable version of the travel guide I wrote for Mobile World Congress. If you're going to MWC 2013, download it for Google Android or Apple iOS. Along the way I reinforced some of my convictions about why we aren't all shifting to the mobile Web any time soon, and got over some of my fears about app development. If you create content, you should think about making an app, too. Don't be scared.

Why Make An App?

We don't live in a perpetually connected world. Wireless connectivity is wobbly and occasionally expensive. I spend at least an hour a day in places with no signal. When I'm roaming internationally, well, I'm lucky if I'm paying under a dollar per megabyte. 

I wanted a way for people to read my guide without having to suck down data from the Internet constantly. I'm not much of a programmer, though; nowadays, my programming escapades are mostly limited to Excel scripts for Fastest Mobile Networks.

That's where Mobile Roadie stepped in. Mobile Roadie is one of a slew of firms with template-based app builders that don't actually require any programming; you pick a bunch of templates, upload some graphics and HTML, and voilà, app. This is obviously isn't going to work for everyone; you couldn't create a game with MobileRoadie's templates, for instance. But for guides, events, or other semi-interactive content presentations, it's really easy.

As you can figure from the name, Mobile Roadie's templates tend to start with stuff for bands and shows. (One of the analytics tabs is called "Music Sales.") I bent the rules to find ways to present my content. A template for a list of speakers became my list of transit tools. A "directory" template took the main body of my guide. With some tweaking here and there, I had a basic app in about eight hours.

My biggest surprise was how many graphics you need for an app. It's obvious, if you think about it, but I hadn't thought about it before: launch screens, backgrounds, icons, headers.  If you aren't the visual type, you'll still need to get a designer on board. (Fortunately, we have a good one here at PCMag.)

This isn't a comparative review, but I'd be interested to find out if other app-creation services have more open templates. I also ran into several bugs in Mobile Roadie's system along the way. Fortunately, tech support was impeccable.

None of this comes free, of course. My Mobile Roadie development package is running $199 for every month I want to maintain or update my app. That will probably put it out of reach for many individuals, but could be fine for, say, college reunion committees.

Android vs. Apple vs. …

App developers generally prefer iOS. We know this: Apple has more uniform hardware, better developer tools and users who are more likely to buy stuff for real money.

But Mobile Roadie smoothed all of that out for me, so I was left with by far the most annoying part of the Apple app experience: submission.

Here's how I submitted my app to Google Play: I submitted it. The next day, it was up.

Here's what I needed to do for iTunes: I tried to submit my app. I failed, because I didn't have a .p12 distribution key. It took a frustrating day or so to figure out what a "p12 distribution key file" is and where to get one. Then I submitted the app, and waited a week worrying that Apple would reject it, and possibly that Apple had some sort of vendetta against me and would never accept any of my apps ever. (That obviously wasn't true.)

And how about Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10? Uh-oh. Mobile Roadie doesn't even see those OSes as worthy of notice, so they're left app-less.

BlackBerry provides an excellent online tool to "wrap" Android apps and submit them to its store, but it turns out there's still quite a lot of manual tweaking involved. Passing my app through BlackBerry's tool coughed out a bunch of errors because the app uses Google Maps, which is a no-no on the BlackBerry platform. So, no app for Windows Phone or BlackBerry 10.

What I Learned On My Appy Vocation

If you have Web content that would work better offline, think about making an app. Template-based app creators like MobileRoadie are easy enough that a distracted Web journalist with a few free weekend hours can use them. You can monetize through ads or charge for the app, but I think it's best to just properly salt it with links to your web site.

The biggest lesson this experience has taught me is that Microsoft and BlackBerry both have a long way to go to compete with the two dominant OS players. It isn't just MobileRoadie; competitors ShoutEm and AppMakr don't handle either OS. Tyggzi and Conduit, two more players, do Windows Phone as well, but I couldn't find any similar system to write BlackBerry 10 apps. To truly compete, Windows Phone and BlackBerry need to be everywhere Android is. They have to be seen as unmissable by the Mobile Roadies of the world.

Oh, yeah, and if you're going to Mobile World Congress - download my app!