Kickfolio, a 500 Startups-backed company bringing iOS app testing to the browser, is today opening up its service to all developers. Similar in some respects to recent Facebook acquisition Pieceable or the Android-focused AppSurfer, Kickfolio also offers a way for developers to upload builds of their mobile applications to its platform, allowing others to then interact with the apps on the web, as opposed to having to download a test build locally to their mobile device.

However, Kickfolio’s solution differs from what Pieceable had offered prior to its acquisition, because its solution uses HTML5, whereas Pieceable’s playable apps were rendered in Flash. “Their solution was great, but it was not terribly performant,” says Kickfolio co-founder and CEO Edward Dowling. “In wanting to build a full-featured platform, we recognized that we needed to get the dependency away from Flash.”

Dowling’s team, which includes co-founders Chris Nolet and Diesel Laws, actually had some experience with Pieceable’s solution. Prior to its current iteration, one of their earlier efforts (also by the name Kickfolio) was a landing page for mobile developers which included the playable demo offered by Pieceable. “We had a lot of users, but it wasn’t getting the traction that we wanted,” says Dowling. He says they had initially added the Pieceable technology as sort of a side feature, but soon discovered that people really loved it. “We decided we would rebuild the feature ourselves, but from the ground up to make it fully HTML5.”

With the new product, developers can now upload a simulator build of their iOS application to Kickfolio.com, fill in a couple of details and then they’ll get a link to their app’s page in the browser, which is currently behind a shortened, but obscured, URL. From here, any tester can play the game or drive the app using their mouse and keyboard, as well as leave comments and feedback on the page. (You can see one example here).

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