App Inventor

OMG lol, whats next... Coffee making widget with sugar counter...

Im so glad I dont have a ifone!
 
now we're talking. iPhone app store: Android just flipped the nitro switch!
 
Got App Inventor activated on my account today, busy downloading the files now. Anyone else played with it yet?
 
OK, comments ...

Firstly, this is online. Everything happens in your web browser, the software is only there to talk to the phone. Projects are stored on Google's servers as well.
Secondly, it uses Java on the browser to run properly, so you need a JRE on your machine.

If you know rapid development environments (like Visual Studio) it looks similar. You place widgets on the screen representing the phone, buttons, textboxes, etc. However, you don't write code attached to each widget. Instead, in a separate screen, you build a code puzzle.

Example: In the design screen you place a button and a textbox, and want to display text inside the textbox when you click the button. So in the code window you get the piece that represents "When button clicked" and places it in the code window. This has an empty socket. In this socket, you place a "Set textbox text" piece, which also has an empty socket. In this socket you insert "Text = " piece and put the text in it. The app won't run until you fill all the sockets first. The last one has no sockets, so you're done. Then you test the app on your phone. As you place the widgets, they appear on your phone immediately, and the app will run as soon as you finish, but only as long as your phone is connected to your PC. If you disconnect it, the app disappears. If you're finally done, you can package the app as a android package and install it.

Useful, and it didn't take me long to create my own "Hello World" app. Obviously you will have to see what complexity it can handle before doing a large application.
 
Valerion said:
OK, comments ...

Firstly, this is online. Everything happens in your web browser, the software is only there to talk to the phone. Projects are stored on Google's servers as well.
Secondly, it uses Java on the browser to run properly, so you need a JRE on your machine.

If you know rapid development environments (like Visual Studio) it looks similar. You place widgets on the screen representing the phone, buttons, textboxes, etc. However, you don't write code attached to each widget. Instead, in a separate screen, you build a code puzzle.

Example: In the design screen you place a button and a textbox, and want to display text inside the textbox when you click the button. So in the code window you get the piece that represents "When button clicked" and places it in the code window. This has an empty socket. In this socket, you place a "Set textbox text" piece, which also has an empty socket. In this socket you insert "Text = " piece and put the text in it. The app won't run until you fill all the sockets first. The last one has no sockets, so you're done. Then you test the app on your phone. As you place the widgets, they appear on your phone immediately, and the app will run as soon as you finish, but only as long as your phone is connected to your PC. If you disconnect it, the app disappears. If you're finally done, you can package the app as a android package and install it.

Useful, and it didn't take me long to create my own "Hello World" app. Obviously you will have to see what complexity it can handle before doing a large application.
Click to expand...

Sounds good - any idea how much bandwidth it uses?
 
alt146 said:
Sounds good - any idea how much bandwidth it uses?
Click to expand...

No idea, I wasn't really monitoring. Not a lot, at any rate.

One criticism I have is that the apps are fairly large. The .apk for even a simple app is over 1 MB and it took up 3.77 MB on the phone. Google claims to be working on this.

Also, you can't sell your apps on the Market for lots of $$$$, which I consider a good thing for the moment. I am sure there's a lot of crappy apps that will be developed soon, together with the good ones. The idea for the moment is small apps that you either use yourself, or share with friends/family to use.
 
Valerion said:
No idea, I wasn't really monitoring. Not a lot, at any rate.

One criticism I have is that the apps are fairly large. The .apk for even a simple app is over 1 MB and it took up 3.77 MB on the phone. Google claims to be working on this.

Also, you can't sell your apps on the Market for lots of $$$$, which I consider a good thing for the moment. I am sure there's a lot of crappy apps that will be developed soon, together with the good ones. The idea for the moment is small apps that you either use yourself, or share with friends/family to use.
Click to expand...

I think that is the best way to go about it - I think a lot of people with only casual/no experience with programming are going to use this at the start - by not letting these apps on the market straight away I think it will force people to test them a lot more comprehensively than they would normally. Otherwise things would probably be put on the market after one compile and not work at all...
 
alt146 said:
I think that is the best way to go about it - I think a lot of people with only casual/no experience with programming are going to use this at the start - by not letting these apps on the market straight away I think it will force people to test them a lot more comprehensively than they would normally. Otherwise things would probably be put on the market after one compile and not work at all...
Click to expand...

Or you end up with a 1,000 variations on one of the tutorial apps flooding the Market. I too am in favour of this.
 
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