DIY On the Go: eHow Launches Mobile Versions

Ever find yourself stuck with a flat on the side of the road, clueless about the first thing in changing a tire? Or, how about agreeing to be a groomsman in your friend's wedding, only to be faced with a bow tie sans clip-on just hours before you need to be at the church?

Thanks to a new mobile version for the iPhone and a new, free app for the Android, eHow.com is ensuring that you never find yourself in a sticky situation without a quick solution ever again. As much for the layman as the DIY doyenne, these two new ways to access the infinite how-to wisdom of the eHow library empower users with the ability to solve an immediate need (read: fixing a flat tire or tying a bow tie) or a put a dream project in motion (say, building an A-frame house from a kit) along with ratings and reviews from eHow's 65 million users and contributors worldwide.

Shoestring Gumshoes found the eHow smartphone experience to be even simpler to use than the website version, with seamless step-by-step photos for many of these "how-to" guides in a conveniently contextual hand-held format. (Think: MacGyver in the palm of your hand.) And, according to Greg Boudewijn, eHow's general manager, that's no accident.

"Our Android app is really an extension of what we've done well online, but now for people who aren't necessarily sitting in front of their computers," Boudewijn said. "Where we're going in the future [with eHow] is taking the brand off the site itself and redefining how people engage with it. When you have so many instruction articles and get to be a Top 20 website, you encompass so much more than just an instruction manual."

Now, if only there had been a "How to Eat Chicken and Waffles" video available from eHow, we may have saved ourselves some time and a big ol' sticky mess at brunch yesterday. But, hey, where there's a will, there's always a way — and for millions of other situations, eHow is making those ways a lot more readily available.

Download the eHow Android app for free at eHow.com, or go to m.ehow.com from your iPhone and enter your cell phone number to request your unique iPhone URL.

To learn more about eHow.com and other online how-to resources, check out Shoestring's Top 10 DIY Websites.

Story: Copyright 2010, Shoestring LLC. Photo: Courtesy of eHow.