Image by missha via FlickrComputerWorld: Google's App Inventor For Android Is A Game-Changer App Inventor has the potential to do for mobile app creation what VisiCalc did for computations -- move it out of the exclusive realm of specialists in glassed-in data centers (or, in the case of mobile apps, programmers who can use a conventional SDK) into the hands of power users as well as make it easier for IT departments to create corporate apps. .... a fair number of components available, ranging from text labels to motion sensors .... you can hook up your phone to your computer while using App Inventor in order to see your app in action. ..... App Inventor for Android is one of the smartest things Google could have done in its battle with Apple for the hearts and minds of smartphone power users. ..... friendly to non-coding power users.
ComputerWorld: Android App Inventor: Another Slap To Apple's Closed Model Google's new App Inventor for Android might just be magical -- and maybe even a little revolutionary. ..... apps created with App Inventor won't even be published to the Android Market as of now. .... The satirical likening of Apple to a communist regime doesn't always seem so far-fetched. ..... While Apple has long bragged about the 47 bazillion apps in its App Store, analyses suggest the vast majority of them actually sit unused.
New York Times: Google’s Do-It-Yourself App Creation Software Google is bringing Android software development to the masses. ..... Google App Inventor for Android (http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/), has been under development for a year .... as cellphones increasingly become the computers that people rely on most, users should be able to make applications themselves. .... he helped initiate M.I.T.’s OpenCourseWare program, which offers free online course materials used in teaching the university’s classes. ..... similar to snapping together Lego blocks ..... A student at the University of San Francisco, Mr. Abelson said, made a program that automatically replied to text messages, when he was driving. “Please don’t send me text messages,” it read. “I’m driving.”
This is not only the future of Android app creation, this is the future of programing itself. Computer programming languages have been on a one way ride to simplicity all these decades. This was bound to happen. Creating an app is now like putting together legos.
This is about thinking of software as utility, as commodity. You don't need a degree in electrical engineering to flip that switch, do you?
Used to be you needed to buy and upkeep servers. Then Amazon came to the rescue. This is a similar big shift in programming.
In The News
Techmeme Offers Tech News at Internet Speed New York Times Techmeme could become a model for other industries as a useful way to harness the increasingly unwieldy Web and arm readers who are preparing for business meetings or cocktail parties. ...... “Techmeme is our go-to primary source,” said Marshall Kirkpatrick, an editor and lead blogger at ReadWriteWeb, a tech blog. ..... Techmeme combines all three strategies, automatically searching the Web, employing editors and accepting tips from readers. .... its 260,000 readers, who check it three million times a month. .... Bijan Sabet, a venture capitalist at Spark Capital who reads Techmeme daily, also visits other aggregators, like Hacker News, because they have more diversity.
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