Take Your Apps For A Spin In The Browser

The recently unwrapped Android-based Amazon.com Appstore includes one feature quite extraordinary, which we highlighted recently: Test Drive, which lets customers play an app before actually buying it. Now, similar functionality is being made available to iOS developers, which could put pressure on Apple to provide a similar feature in the App Store. Pieceable Viewer launches today, which allows prospective app buyers to run and test out embeddable iPhone apps from a web browser. For as little as $30 per month, developers can create three simultaneous viewers for five different applications. For $60, the service provides ten simultaneous viewers for an unlimited number of applications. One created, these viewers are installed on a website for others to see. According to the folks at Pieceable, the viewer works with most iPhone applications, and requires no code changes. Unfortunately, the viewer requires Flash Player 10.0 or higher, meaning it will not actually work through Mobile Safari, at least at this time. Still, this could be a crucial first step in pushing Apple in providing a similar service for iOS app buyers in the App Store. To test out the Pieceable Viewer service yourself, visit their website. What do you think? Leave your comments below.