Google launches Android App Inventor Beta

Ever wanted to create an app for your (or for that matter, someone else's) Android phone? But were lost in the sea of code & APIs that is required to be mastered?

Worry no more - for Google Labs has launched (but of course) a Beta version of the App Inventor for Android.

This looks like a glorified equivalent of the Visual Basic interface that was used to make many a (good & bad) programs. However the good part here is that you can make an entire program without even a single line of coding! To quote from the App Inventor site:

To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app's behavior.

The App Inventor team has created blocks for just about everything you can do with an Android phone, as well as blocks for doing "programming-like" stuff-- blocks to store information, blocks for repeating actions, and blocks to perform actions under certain conditions. There are even blocks to talk to services like Twitter.

Here's to Google to open up it's platform for the young and the old alike for whoever may have the appetite and energy to create their own Android apps. Only time will tell whether this approach will yield better apps or not!