Google Releasing DIY "App Inventor" - App Creation Tool

[christim]

My first thought about this was: How efficient are the apps going to be coded?

I know Google is fairly efficient about making things... well.... efficient. I just hope they continue that.

How many flashlight apps are there? If the first one forced closed once a day, made your phone run slow and took up 20mb on your card the concept of a cool app would be out there and along would come a true java programmer who would knock the size down, fix the bugs you might not be able to fix in Google's new app and the community still would be better off.

I think because you are taking prebuilt building blocks and sliding them into place the code itself has already been optimized somewhat. The cool part will be seeing what unexpected things folks build. Just like kids take their Lego sets and eventually build something that does not match the picture on the box I think we will see a couple of interesting apps.

[rjsurfer]

OK, I give up were do you download the ap?

Ron W.

[christim]

OK, I give up were do you download the ap?

Ron W.

No app for your phone. The tool's info is all in the first post of this thread with links to the website right at the bottom of the post.

[Lucas5]

this kind of reminds me of microsoft's visual basic, but w/o the ability to insert any code. the question on my mind is whether we will either be able to insert some code (java, right?) or some basic scripting ( if/then conditional statements, for example).

[Big Ry]

this kind of reminds me of microsoft's visual basic, but w/o the ability to insert any code. the question on my mind is whether we will either be able to insert some code (java, right?) or some basic scripting ( if/then conditional statements, for example).

that worries me. i dont remember nearly enough java to create an app from scratch, but i remember in VB and Dreamwraver for that matter, that it got kinda annoying lining things up in the GUI. id just pop over to the code and do it manually. i really hope Google adds an "advanced user" tab.



Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

[dakster]

I think I remember from one of the screen shots that there was a button that said download to source. It would be nice to rapidly prototype up the GUI and buttons, and then dump the code to finish off the logic programming by hand.

Although it would be better to be able to insert some code within the tool itself, but still it could be a useful capability. Looking forward to getting access to this to try it out, although I've never done any java programming, just C/C++.

[Bear in NM]

Sorry if I am being thick here, but I downloaded the pc software and the drivers are working. When I log into the webpage needed to run the program, I get the login page, then after logging in the screen goes to the page to submit your email info for interest. I cannot get further than this. Is the program fully functional yet, or do I need an "invite" from google, or perhaps it will be functional soon?

Thanks,

Craig

[scubasteve101]

I think we are all waiting on an invite from google. Mine does the exact same as yours. I'm really surprised there isn't a lot more discussion about this as it seems to be a pretty useful new tool.

[techguru]

I think the NY Times article was premature. Hopefully off by just a week and we'll get access next week. As far as I know, no one who signed up yesterday has gotten access yet. The tool has been available in Alpha (maybe Beta) for some time at some schools.

Alan

[bhall238]

I just sent in my gmail, looking forward to it.