At Furious Tribe we’ve been quietly working away for the last few months on improving our Apptivate platform.

When we first launched Apptivate in 2010, we created a highly disruptive business model that allowed enterprises to build and manage their own Apps for iPhone.

Since then, we’ve sold thousands of Apptivate licences all over the world and we’ve also added multi-platform support and a host of other new features to better meet our customers needs.

Today we’ve added the biggest and most exciting feature since Apptivate’s initial launch and we think it’s going to be a game changer for both our product and our customers.

We’ve introduced an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) into Apptivate so our customers now have total control over their Apps. Using our IDE, our customers now have the power to break free of our pre-built modules and templates and completely customise everything about their App, from the placement of a button to complex user interactions. Now our customers can edit or create code within the Apptivate IDE and make use of web technologies like jQuery mobile, CSS and javascript to make their mobile Apps come to life.

Files and folders are easily created and saved, and users have the option to choose their preferred colour theme to code in.

We’ve changed the user journey for creating new Apps a little bit. Users now have the option to create either a ‘Simple’ or an ‘Advanced’ App. Users can only use the IDE with an Advanced App, however for clients who don’t need the IDE our pre existing modules are still available via a Simple App. Within our new system, users can create multiple Apps within the one account, and you can assign version numbers and notes to go with each App.

We know from working with some of our Enterprise customers both locally and internationally that this is exactly the kind of feature our clients want to be made available to them. All our product development is directly influenced by what we’ve learned by working with clients such as RSA, AXA Global Distributors, Davy and Danone to name a few.

We’ve recognised that there is a strong demand from the Enterprise market for strategic mobile consultancy coupled with innovative technology that allows enterprises to have control over the maintenance of their Apps. We believe the Furious Tribe offering is meeting our clients’ needs but we’re not stopping there. We’ve already moved on to developing new functionality and we’re looking forward to releasing even more innovative features for Apptivate in the very near future.

Yesterday Google announced their new mobile payment system – Google Wallet. It basically takes advantage of NFC (near field communication) and allows users to make payments using their mobile phones, just by touching them to a spot at the register. Sounds cool. Even better – they’ve decided to integrate it with Google Offers, so that you don’t have to carry coupons and cards around anymore, you just make a payment in a store and the discount from the offer is used automatically.

Google Wallet already has the backing of Citi, Mastercard and Sprint in the US, so it looks like this could be the next big thing in terms of payments, and less likely to go the way of other less successful Google products such as Wave.

While Google says they’re building it as an open commerce ecosystem, we still don’t know if Google Wallet will be available on Windows Phone 7 or iPhone or if Apple will try to come up with their own contactless payment system, possibly in conjunction with PayPal (who as it turns out are suing Google over this whole thing). Google are also a little bit hazy on the security details.

Whatever happens, mobile payments are the next big thing – whoever gets it right first is sure to be on to a winner.

There has been a lot of negative talk in the Irish press about the recent campaign started by Budweiser here in Ireland to promote ‘Budweiser Ice Cold’. With great fanfare Budweiser launched a big advertising campaign which included TV ads, a dedicated website and a mobile App (not developed by us!!). The idea behind the campaign was a good one – celebrate summer by offering discounts on Budweiser Ice Cold if the temperature reaches a certain heat. The hotter it gets the bigger the discount, and if it gets really really hot you can have a free beer. You can check the ‘Ice Cold Index’ via the App or the website, and find out whether you are eligible for a discount on that day. Fantastic!

However Budweiser ran into some problems: they failed to mention that the temperature is measured at midday, so if the temperature doesn’t reach the target by midday, you won’t get a discount even if it gets hotter later in the day. On top of that, the App didn’t work.

I think there are some lessons to be learned here about delivering on your promises. If you promise something in a campaign you must deliver.

The App has now been removed from the App store and the website www.icecoldindex.ie is giving a message about server problems. Unfortunately the damage has already been done to a promising campaign and it remains to be seen how it will be received if they relaunch.

After somewhat of a hiatus, the Furious Tribe blog is back. Over the last few months, we became so caught up in our client work and product development that our blog really got forgotten about. Recently, we’ve only had time to put mini press releases up here, which as all good bloggers know, is top of the list of things not to do if you care about blogging quality content.

We care a lot more about our community than that, which is why we’ve made a mid-year resolution to start blogging regularly, in an effort to start up a conversation and build some bridges with the mobile and digital community. We’d love it for people to check back here regularly, leave comments and tell us what they think. We’ll be approving every single genuine comment (no spam please!) left here, because we believe that criticism is just as constructive as positive feedback.

It’s here that you’ll find the Furious Tribe team waxing lyrical about all things mobile, digital and social. From time to time, you’ll probably find an article that’s got absolutely nothing to do with any of that, but we think that sometimes that’s ok too. So, please check early and often for Furious news and views, and if you feel like telling us something we don’t know or asking about something we haven’t covered, we’d be delighted to hear from you. Enjoy!

Our Apps for O2 Rugby are live on Android http://bit.ly/gvVh46 and iPhone http://bit.ly/fci2Ez. Record your roar and get behind the team!!

We are very excited to announce that we are relaunching Apptivate, our App building software in the New Year with lots of new and exciting features. To celebrate, we are giving away ten free Apptivate Apps. If you’d like to get your hands on a free App for 2011, get in touch at dublin@furioustribe.com.

Further to our nominations for the Appys, we discovered today that the App we developed for TV3 has been shortlisted in the Mobile App category for the Eircom Spiders awards. Very exciting!

The Furious Tribe team are delighted to see that we have had eight of our apps nominated in seven different categories for the Appys, the Irish awards for Mobile Apps. The awards take place next week in Dublin  - we’re really looking forward to it and hopefully we’ll come away with a few awards! Good luck to all the other nominees, we’ll see you there.

Yesterday we took delivery of some lovely brand new macs for the office. We’re like kids at Christmas here in the Furious Tribe office and we can’t wait to start using them!

Here at Furious Tribe we’re pretty focused on Mobile and we thought we’d seen it all when it came to innovative uses of the iPhone. But this story of a father and son launching an iPhone 4 into space using weather balloons is definitely something new and in our opinion a little bit special. The dad involved just happens to be Luke Geissbuhler, the founder of the Brooklyn Space Program – a group of friends based in New York who are interested in scientific experiments, engineering, design and education. Check out the video  - it’s amazing

Brooklyn Space Program – iPhone voyage into space