A lot of software developers haven’t liked the idea of this movement towards native mobile apps because some feel they’re pushing people towards devices that aren’t as open to tinkering as PCs are. That’s especially true with Apple’s devices. But Android is a pretty open system, and it seems that a tool like this could inspire people to want to learn how to make great apps.While WYSIWYG HTML editors led to an abundance of junk web pages, those tools also opened the door for a lot of people to learn HTML who may not have done so otherwise. With App Inventor, just as with those tools, it would seem that no one is going to be able to make a truly remarkable apps without digging into the code eventually. And that may be Google’s ultimate goal with this.
But still, they have to hope it doesn’t backfire and simply flood the Android Market with more junk apps than already exist. Google already has a problem with surfacing good apps in their market – interesting, given that they are the ones that surface good webpages as mentioned earlier — the problem could get worse if this tool is a success.
Still, I’m going to be cautiously optimistic that this tool is a good thing. Potentially a very good thing. And it’s something Apple should be taking very seriously.
The incomparable MG Siegler nails the risk/reward of the Google App Inventor.
