Looks like Google means business and has devised a strategy to promote the android platform in any way to gain more popularity . The company is now giving access to an experimental system that allows anyone without prior programming experience to create a full android application through visual components that need only dragging and dropping. Most interactions you can think of, can be modelled visually using the App Inventor. Moreover, using the App inventor, you can visually create applications that accesses android sensors, such as Accelorometer, Compass, Proximity, Pressure, and light sensor, including applications that use Camera and GPS. I know that developers like tweaking stuff in the underlying source code, but sorry for that because the App Inventor does not generate any java code. It is primarily tailored for non-tech people who are interested in getting their hands in the creation of the technology regardless being inexperienced in technical stuff. But that does not mean that if you are a developer, you cannot use the App Inventor. As a developer, you can experiment with the App Inventor on how to create applications with Rich User Experience and save the time you spend trying to tweak the code to make the app looks cool. Although I have not yet get my hands on the App Inventor, however, from a set of video trailers, I can confirm that the App Inventor is quite a nice tool to have as an individual who want to rapidly create cool apps without much hussle. You can find out more about the App Inventor at App Inventor Home at Google Labs
This strategy however will not succeed without a proper follow-up strategy, a transitional stage of some sort, to help the visual developers take their skills to the back end. Think back of the appeal of MS Visual Studio. The promise to develop running Windows programs by dragging and dropping components onto a visual designer was appealing to every aspiring programmer. After playing with the nice window designer comes a very interesting question: "then what?" This is the point where Google's strategy will make it or break down. Without a proper transitional platform many potential developers of the platform will become frustrated and try something else.
ReplyDeleteThe other unfortunate reality is the convergence phenomenon. When a technology is young it has many players but the more it matures a few big players emerge and the small players are squeezed out of business until only 2 or 3 big players remain. Mobile App development is still in its infancy but in 10 years' time all this buzz would be dead and only a few boring big corporate companies will remain and the creativity will go with the buzz unfortunately.