14 DAY TRIAL // As much as Google promotes the web as the ultimate platform, the realities of today’s market are evident. Apple’s App Store was a huge success and mobile apps are seen as the biggest thing since sliced bread, especially by the struggling media companies. That may or may not be true and the app model’s long-term survival is still to be proven, but, for the time being, Google has to play ball.
The Android App Marketplace is growing at a steady pace, but Google wants to get as many apps as possible, maybe in an effort to catch up to Apple, and has now introduced the Google App Inventor which enables practically everyone to create a mobile app for the Android platform.
The idea behind App Inventor is simple, creating applications is hard work, even those based on standard web technologies, and requires knowledge outside the reach of most people. While anyone with some programing experience can put together a basic app in a matter of hours, the way Google sees it, your grandma should be able to build Android apps as well.
The App Inventor is now live over at Google Labs. It provides a simple web-based interface and requires no programing knowledge. “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 tool’s about page reads. You can find out more about the way App Inventor works here.
In practical terms, app building is probably not going to become the next big thing. But a number of people are going to be attracted by the idea. Google sees this more as way of getting people interested in the process and it’s evident from the way it tested the tool. App Inventor has been in the works for over a year and has been in testing in schools and especially with non-tech-savvy groups.