All from a web browser on your computer

Jul 12, 2010 10:30 GMT  ·  By

The building of software solutions for Google's Android operating system has just got a little easier, as a new tool is available for those interested in the matter, namely the App Inventor for Android. The new solution enables the development of applications for the Android platform through the use of a web browser and a Java Web Start application, and enables almost anyone to come up with a software solution for an Android-based device.

According to the development team, the solution is that simple to use mainly due to the fact that one won't have to write code, but would be able to visually design the way in which the app looks, while making use of blocks to specify the app's behavior. There are a great deal of blocks one can use, including blocks for storing information, for repeating actions, for connecting to online services, or for performing actions under certain conditions.

“The blocks editor uses the Open Blocks Java library for creating visual blocks programming languages. Open Blocks is distributed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Scheller Teacher Education Program and derives from thesis research by Ricarose Roque. We thank Eric Klopfer and Daniel Wendel of the Scheller Program for making Open Blocks available and for their help in working with it. Open Blocks visual programming is closely related to the Scratch programming language, a project of the MIT Media Laboratory's Lifelong Kindergarten Group,” the guys over at Google Labs state.

As for the type of applications that can be created through the use of App Inventor for Android, the list is quite a long one, it seems, ranging from simple games to complicated ones or to applications developed for educational purposes. The App Inventor can take advantage of a GPS-location sensor too, and also enabled the building of software solutions that can benefit from other features of a handset.

As stated above, the App Inventor for Android can be used via a web browser. The development team notes that it is compatible with Mozilla Firefox 3.6 and higher, Apple Safari 5.0 and higher, Google Chrome 4.0 and higher, and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and higher, and that it can be used on computers running under Windows (XP, Vista and 7), Mac OS X 10.5, 10.6, or Linux (Ubuntu 8+, Debian 5+). Java 6 is also required. Additional details on the matter are available here.

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