Abstract: Various embodiments of the disclosed invention include a design and development interface for mobile smartphone applications; the generation and delivery of content customized to the smartphone application execution platform; and the support of update functionality within the mobile applications. In one embodiment, a development environment provides templates via a website interface to easily create and design a smartphone application. This design interface can also be used to create updates for deployed smartphone applications. Within the mobile application, the application content is provided by XML data sets and non-textual data (such as images), and displayed within a set of modifiable containers. These containers and the data displayed within the containers may be updated and modified, enabling full customization of the application and its displayed content.