Macworld/iWorld 2014 ran from March 27 to 29, 2014, at Moscone Center North in San Francisco. It was not a WordPress event, which is exactly why it mattered. AppPresser, the WordPress mobile app framework co-founded by our founder Brian Messenlehner, was named one of six finalists in the show's 6 About to Break program and presented on the Second Stage on March 27, with a kiosk on the floor for the rest of the show.
WordPress in front of an Apple crowd
The Macworld audience was full of people who lived on iPhones, iPads and Macs, and many of them published on WordPress without thinking of it as an app platform. The pitch was simple: if your content, members and products already live in WordPress, you should not need a separate backend and a separate team to put them in an iOS app.
In 2014 that was a new idea for most of the room. Native apps were usually built from scratch by mobile agencies, with their own content systems that drifted out of sync with the website. AppPresser's approach let the WordPress site stay the single source of truth while the app gave users a fast, installable experience.
What 6 About to Break meant
The program highlighted young products the organizers expected to break out. Being picked put a WordPress product next to hardware and software makers that usually had the stage to themselves. For the WordPress community, it was a small signal that the platform was being taken seriously outside its own events. We were careful not to overstate it then and we will not now. It was a finalist slot and a stage presentation, and it was a great few days of conversations with people who had never thought about WordPress and apps in the same sentence.
From a kiosk to more than 1,000 apps
The questions at the kiosk were practical. Can the app send push notifications? Can it work offline? Can members log in with the same account they use on the website? Can I sell products through it? Those questions shaped the product roadmap for years. Today there are more than 1,000 apps built on the AppPresser platform, and every one of those features is part of how we scope mobile projects at AlphaWeb.
What this means for clients now
When an organization asks us whether it needs a mobile app, we still start where the Macworld pitch started:
- Keep WordPress as the system of record for content, users and commerce.
- Use the app for what apps do best: home screen presence, push notifications, offline access and device features.
- Avoid a second content workflow that your team has to maintain by hand.
- Plan for App Store and Google Play review from the first sprint, not the last week.
Macworld/iWorld 2014 was a long way from a WordCamp, and that was the point. Taking WordPress into rooms where it is not expected is how we find the clients who benefit most from it. If you have a WordPress site and an app idea, AlphaWeb can help you connect the two.
At a glance
- Event: Macworld/iWorld 2014
- Dates: March 27 to 29, 2014
- Venue: Moscone Center North, San Francisco
- Program: AppPresser was a 6 About to Break finalist
- Stage time: Second Stage, March 27, 4:30 to 5:30 pm, plus a kiosk on the show floor
Related: Designing App Screens With the AppPresser App Page Builder, Turning a WordPress Site Into iOS and Android Apps: A Developer's Guide and Your WordPress Site Already Has an App Inside It.
Have a question about this event or a project like the ones mentioned here? Reach out to AlphaWeb and Brian will be glad to talk it through. We are always happy to compare notes on WordPress, mobile apps and migrations.
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