Unlike Apple, where all iPhone mobile apps can be found in their App Store, if you own an Android phone, then you know searching for that perfect app that aids your productivity can be tedious. Since Android is an open platform software, anybody can create and distribute apps from anywhere, which adds to the problem of out of the 50,000 apps in the Android Market alone, where do you find the one that will work for you and your business?
Here’s an idea, why not make your own Android App? Now when I hear a question like that, the first thing (the only thing actually) that pops into my head is “I don’t know anything about coding, programming, or application development.”
Now I am pretty sure there are others who feel the same way, and Google wants to address people like us with their new App Inventor for Android project that might just start your mobile business application motor turning. due to the fact that using App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. Instead of creating code from scratch, you are taking pieces (Inventor calls them blocks) of functions and mashing them together visually to create a full functioning app. Sounds simple right? Below is a video of App Inventor in action
WHATEVER your Android phone can do, Inventor has a block for it, which you can assemble with other blocks to make your own app. Now of course, if you do know a thing or two about mobile app development, then you can take Inventor to the next level and crank out some serious apps. But the purpose behind App Inventor is to turn technology consumers into technology creators (and you should know by now how this site’s owner feels about that)
Mario’s “beef” ties right into Google’s idea behind the App Inventor Project:
“The educational perspective that motivates App Inventor holds that programming can be a vehicle for engaging powerful ideas through active learning. As such, it is part of an ongoing movement in computers and education that began with the work of Seymour Papert and the MIT Logo Group in the 1960s.”
So before you start digging through the Android Market and/or scouring the net looking for an app that will pull all of your business financial statement emails, print them to PDF, and save them on your phone, think about creating it first with the Android App Inventor by Google Labs.
*Maybe I should have patented and trademarked that idea before I said it*