Google fashions Android dev kit for dummies (from Scratch) Google has unveiled an experimental tool that lets non-developers develop applications for Android phones. This Google Labs project is known as App Inventor for Android, and it's based on platforms built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including Scratch, the well-known visual web app builder designed for non- …
Don't you have to sign up and pay a fee to get your app sold/given away through the Android market place? So it isn't as if all you need to do is set up a free account and get on with it.
In comparison.. In the hallowed sanctity of the app store temple of smut free iSpiffiness... Where each and every app is carefully vetted for purity and wholesomeness by teams of specially trained iElves..
How many tip calculators?
How many fart apps?
How many flashlight apps?
How many apps that are not much more than the example app in the video?
How many PD books wrapped in a reader and sold as full blown apps?
How many games that are little more than accelerometer based versions of those old "get the ball bearings into the holes" games I played when I was a kid?
Can you look me in the eye and say these are worthy examples of the programmer's art? Not just there to make the numbers up?
Agreed. "Lego programming" is not new. But it is a fun way to get involved, and to perhaps see computers as something more than boxes you buy software for and play games or surf for porn on.
>scratch is a fantastic tool to teach younger kids the basics of programming
Second that......Scratch used to be a great way for kids to make iPhone Apps until Skeletor had Scratch Player for iPhone removed from The Store.....
>But do we really want another 10,000 fart apps diluting the Market?
I'd happily can 90% of what's there now - but sadly its the numbers game that matters for App Stores....
Hopefully they'll have the sense to add a filter in Market for stuff thus created...
but I don't know how many 8 year olds will have Android phones or tablets anytime soon - although this could be a driver for that price point in educational channels.
But I am reminded of the saying " build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will use it..." Perhaps we will just get flooded with garbage (take a look at the Scratch site for what I mean) built by kids as simple applets. This may have a negative effect onthe penetration of Android into business markets...
Google does quite a bit wrong which is why neither my employer, or I, use anything live with Google ... privacy trust is lacking.
However, for personal use both my wife and daughter find their HTC Android telephones reliable and useful. Google has limited control over Apps, which is good, but, speaking personally, since I don't know what data is collected by Google, or what uses they put it to, I don't use their smartphones. Of course, Apple also collects unknown data and no one knows what they do with it, either.
I use anything that meets my needs with usually only security being the over-riding concern.
I am am ardent supporter of excellence: embracing the people - some might call 'empowering' - is an extremely shrewd move by Google in the same way that school children have developed Apps.
Even if it makes some of the chore of android development easier, so you can spend more time writing code underneath.
I haven't used scratched, and don't know if this can create source that can the be tweaked in Eclipse ADT tools...
I would imagine every day at Apple brings on even more hurt... With every new phone, every new Android marketshare report, every new Android tool, every bad iPhone4 review...
Apple has ered with the iPhone 4 antenna, but at the same time I would hardly be scared of Android right now. The UI is downright clunky, copy and pasting is a terrible chore and there is mostly garbage for apps. Googles new tech will surely change that though.
Droidtards are almost as bad as open source fanbois somedays.
most of the new owners of androids have never used an android phone nor an IPhone before as they are all coming from either blackberry or nokia or feature phones. And once they are into android , they are hooked for life, all those wonderful services on android phones like satnav, google voice etc will make them lifelong fans of android phones.
And they will follow Google around like the sheep they are, finding no fault at all with them. Ironic I find it - Fandroids running around decrying fanbois Apple based decisions. Utterly ironic.
I say this in jest (mostly) because this whole battle and attacking a person due to the product choices they make is silly. What's even sillier, though, is thinking that the choice you made in a product makes you better than those who made a different choice.
If you like Apple products, great, so what? If you like Android phones, great and so what?
"I say this in jest (mostly) because this whole battle and attacking a person due to the product choices they make is silly. What's even sillier, though, is thinking that the choice you made in a product makes you better than those who made a different choice."
Er, didn't you see any of Apple's 'Mac / PC' TV adverts? Apple started it, therefore AFAIC they and their legions of fanboys can go fuck themselves.
Another iCretin that's never actually seen an Android.
Your claims of copy and pasting on android being a chore are laughable. Long Press.. That's all you have to do...
Ironic since that iPhone only recently got copy and paste and Android had it from the outset.... Perhaps iOS will also get proper multitasking too, not this lame hack it currently has.
Given that Scratch really wants to animate block textures, or animate jpgs, it will probably not be anything that you can create a complex interface with. And by the time you start tweaking the underlying code, well then, you might as well have not used Scratch in the first place. As has been said, it is a very basic programming model.
And one thing you seem to have forgotten - Apple has NEVER been about marketshare, not really. Apple is about PROFITABILITY, overall and on a per unit basis. They drive that profitability by having a "premium" product set. Not clear that Scratch really would contribute to this, although it may in the educational market, where Apple has traditionally been strong.
I think the antenna issue will cause a LOT more consternation within Apple...
Scratch is an excellent educational tool for kids, both of mine (8 and 12) love using it. They really like the idea of being able to use something Scratch-like to write their own phone apps.
Cheap Android phones (like the Vodafone 845) coupled with a way for kids to write simple apps for them is a catch-em-young policy that might pay off.
Yes, App Inventor is only ever going to be a toy, but giving an average kid a way to write apps for his/her phone? That's inspired.
There was, incidentally, a Scratch player for the iPhone, until the App Police banned it.
a while ago Microsoft had a project called Popfly that was pretty much this ... wire up blocks to build a website widget... eg grab bus position data and plot it on a map so you'd know when to run for the stop etc ... it generated Silverlight apps
sadly it got shuttered a while back, but I saw someone was working on porting it to Phone7 - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ben_anderson/archive/2010/03/17/popfly-game-engine-updated-to-run-on-windows-phone-7-series.aspx
wonder how App Inventor compares to SmallBasic (http://smallbasic.com/) as a learning platform...
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