Drag and drog app platform Tiggzi adds database functionality

WIth an emphasis on a productivity-rich UI and its new database functionality, Tiggzi competes for app developers platform love.

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the app economy has uprooted how we think about the technology market. In a landscape formerly dominated by hardware titans and products that targeted the IT crowd and not the everyday consumer, the app has become not only a legitimate startup idea but the foundation of the hottest, fastest-growing industry — mobile. 

Which is why it stands to reason that there’s plenty of interest not only in developing apps but in developing tools for developing apps (say that three times fast). Apps are supposed to be inherently simple and enjoyable on the user-end — and now that’s being applied to the developer side of things as well. 

One startup attempting to infuse some ease and accessibility into this process is Tiggzi. Founded last year, the company falls under the umbrella of software engineering company Exadel, and it’s a cloud-based mobile app platform that relies on the simplest of the simplest actions for app creation: Drag and drop. 

“We started Tiggzi as a prototyping tool so that developers could create their UI,” says head of community and developer relations Max Katz. “We just realized, ‘Well we can’t go much further than just building the UI with that.’ So it grew from there.” 

With Tiggzi, you’re launched into a digital workshop where, to put this in the simplest terms possible, you drag and drop the elements you want over to the device image. You can use these functions to create iOS, Android, HTML 5, and Windows Phone apps. 

Of course, while the action itself is familiar and easy, don’t confuse Tiggzi with something you can pick up sans developer skills. “At the end of the day this is a development tool, and you’ll need to have Web development skills,” Katz says, adding that HTML, Javascript, and CSS proficiency are generally what you’ll find necessary to use Tiggzi. But these skills, combined with the action-orientation and immediacy of Tiggzi turn it into a great productivity tool for developers. 

The fact that Tiggzi is entirely cloud-based and runs in the browser with no download or install necessary is also part of its allure. 

New to Tiggzi is its database. The platform previously announced it would be adding some a backend and storage for developers’ Tiggzi-made apps. It also comes with plugins so that developers can auto plug pre-made functionalities into their apps — as an example, Katz showed me how a developer could pull and put in the AT&T sms messaging feature via the available plugin. 

“We started as just the builder, but the backend services make us a platform,” says Katz. “A lot of companies have the backend, but they don’t have the builder, but we have both. We can offer the entire stack.”