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."

Comments

Re:I might have to sway back and get an iphone..

[rumith]

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.