Just over 8 months ago we officially released the first version of the now popular mobile app prototyping tool, Proto.io. Ever since we have been improving the tool on a regular basis with new features, new UI components and more ,however, we felt that this was not enough. Your love, feedback, support, trust and need for the product have inspired us to take silly-fast mobile prototyping a step further; silly-faster! Since last November we have been working on the subsequent release of our Proto.io and are now proud to be launching Proto.io V2 which I am happy and excited to walk you through in the next few paragraphs.
This major release is not just a set of new features and improvements, it is a complete redesign from the ground-up of all major components of the system, re-developed and optimized source code and important new features. To avoid being dull I will concentrate on the major ones:
New interfaces, better UX
In order to set the grounds for the new and exiting features scheduled to come, we needed to redesign the UI from scratch and that’s exactly what we did. We have redesigned the website, the blog, the dashboard, the prototype editor and the web player. The new editor UI allows faster and smoother prototyping. Various smaller system components have been improved such as the asset manager plus the addition of other small but important tools. We have also added some new event gestures and actions for prototyping, and all while maintaining full backward compatibility!
New device support – Android!
The new release sets the grounds for rapid support of new devices. Our rendering engine and players have been re-engineered to accommodate this need that comes from the ever changing mobile industry. Not only have we expanded support for iOS for more screen sizes in order to support iOS retina displays, but we now also support Android OS. We have concentrated on the most common Android device resolutions; the 480×800 for smart phones and the 800×1280 for tablet devices. This release comes with a set of UI components for Android but more components are under development and will be released on a daily basis. The web player and device player are now compatible with Android devices so that you can preview your Android prototypes straight on the devices themselves. Here is the list of the devices that are currently supported:
- iPhone 3/3GS/4/4S (320×480)
- iPhone 4/4S (640×960)
- iPad 1 and 2 (768×1024)
- Android Smartphone (480×800)
- Android Tablet (800×1280)
Export to HTML
This is perhaps one of the ‘most wanted’ features that our audience requested. And yes, it is ready! You can now export your prototype to a zip file containing all the HTML, stylesheets, scripts, assets, data and any other file necessary for the prototype to run offline in your web browser. You can even put that prototype into a web-view and check it out as a real app. We have tested this with custom coding and with PhoneGap for iOS and Android. It just works! How-to tutorials coming later this month.
Coming next…
Proto.io V2 sets the grounds for greater device support, future features and much more. Follow us on twitter to stay updated with the latest on silly-fast mobile prototyping.
Alexis Piperides
Proto.io Product Manager
