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The Android Gets Its HyperCard
theodp writes "Steve Jobs & Co. put the kibosh on easier cellphone development, but Google is giving it a shot. The NY Times reports that Google is bringing Android software development to the masses, offering a software tool starting Monday that's intended to make it easy for people to write applications for its Android phones. The free software, called Google App Inventor for Android, has been under development for a year. User testing has been done mainly in schools with groups that included sixth graders, high school girls, nursing students and university undergraduates who are not CS majors. The thinking behind the initiative, Google said, is that as cellphones increasingly become the computers that people rely on most, users should be able to make applications themselves. It's something Apple should be taking very seriously, advises TechCrunch."
I don't think I understand you correctly: nobody forces you to install those millions of fart-apps! If they find their audience among the teens, why not? Do you really notice that the whole web is literally overwhelmed by pages of similar (i.e. non-existent) quality?
The problem is not that Android Market will be flooded by low-quality apps. The problem is that Android Market has pretty rudimentary app search and filtering capabilities to reduce signal to noise ratio. Sorry for the irony, but Google must build a decent search engine for Android apps.
I took a look at the demostration videos and whatnot, and the user interface seems to be a cross between XCode's interface builder and MIT's Scratch. The code is written by dragging "puzzle pieces" into place, just like in Scratch. However, I assume this uses Java rather than Squeak? Scratch is kind of a lot different than HyperCard, but, you know... whatever. If only my BlackBerry Storm hadn't turned me off smartphones forever, I might actually be inclined to give this a shot.
just give us proper scripting with proper exposure of the internals to the scripting language
like hp calculators have RPL.
i see stuff on the android market that would take 3 lines of scripting to accomplish... yet they are presented as "apps".
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
A simple App maker like hypercard was? It is supported on Windows, OS X, and Ubuntu. It also works with both Java 1.5 and 1.6. Way to go Google! You may have finally hit upon a great way to outcompete Apple in the mobile space. I just hope you're working on improving the Android Market in a big hurry.
Keep in mind that among the flood of horrid homepages with purple backgrounds, jumping frogs, blinking stars and background MIDI tunes, there also emerged hundreds of thousands of highly valuable niche Web resources created by highly motivated nonprofessionals ... and Google figured out a (community-powered) algorithm for finding the good stuff.
>There will be a billion "look ma, I click this button and something happens" apps. Aside from that?
That's what they said about html because of its simplicity, but it turns out that most people's needs aren't met by commecial software and need something that's just not worth paying someone to develop.
There's always going to be a need for simple apps. I don't see this than being any different than VBA for apps or building front-ends in Access. Non-coders can learn these things, build prototypes or even little production apps, and be better off for it. I think it would be foolish to let Apple or WinMo take the lead in simple app development because it has the potential to be a big deal. I'm pleased to see that not only is Google not emulating Apple's lock down/walled garden approach, they are also promoting simplified development to end users!
At the risk of sounding sentimental, I think lowering the barrier for entry for app building is a step toward my personal vision of utopia. "solve[ing] the weird little application-specific problems that are important to them or their business, and which are too small to pay for a real developer" is exactly how you end up with the most diverse software environment possible, and get the really inventive, out-of-left-field creatives to participate.
A higher barrier for entry certainly has not prevented the deluge of "iFart" apps.