New Web App Browser to Take on Apple and Google

New Web app brower mobiUs promises to shake up the app market.

Image: appMobi

Today appMobi announced mobiUs, a new HTML5 Web app browser that lets users download apps that take advantage of their phone’s indigenous features, such as the accelerometer, camera, GPS, compass, vibration, microphone, and camera, for free. Although the browser is in direct competition with Apple and Google, the so-called “walled gardens,” it is now available in the Apple App Store.

appMobi says it met with skepticism that the technology could be developed, and some said that if it was developed, it would never make it into the App Store.

Now that they have done so, developers will be able to use mobiUS to create apps that operate like native apps, even without connectivity. Good news for subway riders: The browser also includes built-in e-commerce capability allowing developers to incorporate a secure payment method within their apps.

Since many of of the apps created using mobiUs will likely be downloaded and played on sites like Facebook, the potential earnings are enormous. In a recent study, an estimated 182,000 jobs having been created by Facebook apps alone, and $12.18 billion dollars in wages generated.

A spokesperson for mobiUS, Melissa Burns, says she believes that “developers need to know about this. Brands creating apps and interactive Websites need to know about this. End users need to know about this.” And with so much money at stake in the app market, her enthusiasm is understandable.

mobiUs for Android will be available at the beginning of 2012.

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