All of the people hand-wringing over the possibly of amateur developers making crappy apps for mass-distribution are missing the point.
This isn't a tool for allowing non-programmers to develop apps for mass sale/distribution (although I'm sure there will be plenty of that). This is a tool for allowing non-programmers (like me!) to create tools for a mobile platform to make our own custom apps to fulfill our own niche needs.
This could be huge - yeah, I'm sure the apps won't be as polished, fast, or optimized as an app written in the native language and using the native API's, but I'm a professional mechanical/acoustical engineer who spends my time working on my job and I don't have the time (or inclination) to learn to be a software engineer/programmer. Similarly, programming my own DSP filter in C would probably result in a more efficient analysis tool, but Matlab/Octave gets the done while allowing me to concentrate on my engineering projects rather than dealing with memory management, etc. Don't look at it as a developer's tool, it's a high-level RAD environment like VB, Excel, etc.
Now of course the proof is in the pudding and we'll have to see how it works in the real world. I will say that I'm a current Nokia smartphone user who has been sitting out the iOS/Android war, but if if App Inventor works well, Google will have brought me over to the Android camp.
This isn't a tool for allowing non-programmers to develop apps for mass sale/distribution (although I'm sure there will be plenty of that). This is a tool for allowing non-programmers (like me!) to create tools for a mobile platform to make our own custom apps to fulfill our own niche needs.
This could be huge - yeah, I'm sure the apps won't be as polished, fast, or optimized as an app written in the native language and using the native API's, but I'm a professional mechanical/acoustical engineer who spends my time working on my job and I don't have the time (or inclination) to learn to be a software engineer/programmer. Similarly, programming my own DSP filter in C would probably result in a more efficient analysis tool, but Matlab/Octave gets the done while allowing me to concentrate on my engineering projects rather than dealing with memory management, etc. Don't look at it as a developer's tool, it's a high-level RAD environment like VB, Excel, etc.
Now of course the proof is in the pudding and we'll have to see how it works in the real world. I will say that I'm a current Nokia smartphone user who has been sitting out the iOS/Android war, but if if App Inventor works well, Google will have brought me over to the Android camp.