A company which claimed to have a comprehensive and low cost mobile app generator, Golden Gekko, appears to have been counting its chickens before they hatched. Three months later there's still no ability to build iPhone app.
Golden Gekko has spun off its app generator, Tino, as a separate entity with its own web site - Tinomobile.The site boasts about an iPhone app, Crazo, built in time for Xmas by developer, Ustwo. 
However, when Tino was approached by one budding mobile app builder, he was told that the iPhone capability won't actually be ready until March.
Tino seems to be firmly Java based – which is how the company claims that it can produce Java, Blackberry and Android applications.
Most handsets are capable of running a common form of mobile Java (J2ME) which is how Tino can claims that its apps will run on Nokia, Symbian and Windows Mobile based handsets.
The revelation that Tino isn't iPhone ready yet will disappoint many budding apps builders given that the common strategy is produce an iPhone app first and follow that with versions for other leading smartphones.
The other drawback to Tino is that there don't appear to be any APIs – which would enable Tino generated apps to interface with other software running on the mobile phone.
Another claim made when Tino was announced in Novemeber centred on the ability to enable apps to be produced for a mere £100.
This figure appears to be feasible only if you build 60 apps per month. Normally a single app would cost around €1,000 but for that price, you do get all the possible permutations of the app so it will run on the majority of smartphones – except the iPhone, of course.
In Tino's favour, however, it provides a very straightforward method of building your first mobile app. Something which a novice could feasibly achieve.
- We never claimed we would have iPhone earlier than during the first half of 2010. Tino is designed to make apps for mass market and not niche smartphones and this is why Java was the first format we wanted to launch with. iPhone represents 3% of the market. 75-80% of all downloaded apps are not iPhone. We are planning for Tino to cover as many formats as possible but wanted to provide the format that could reach the largest audiences first
- Tino is constantly evolving and developing and we will be adding more features constantly.
- We have never claimed Tino works with IPhone and the article being referred to was a news article we had added to the news section of the site and not a comment on a new client
- Tino is not aimed at developers and but for businesses who either own or create content as we believe there is a clear need to reduce the barrier of entry into the market place
- Varying types of API integration user cases are on the road map but API is just a term for an interface and not sure what you mean by there are no API’s. We have an xml/RSS feed reader which is a type of API.
- In regards to the comments about price, the comment on £100 per app depended on the business model and has been taken slightly out of context. Tino again is not designed for consumers for one off app builds. It is designed for companies wanting to adopt apps as part of their strategy and the more apps created the more cost effective it is. We are including further business models in the future.
Would be very happy if you would like to find out anything about our developments and plans for Tino as well as our successes.
Kind regards
Tino team
www.tinomobile.com