Google App Inventor for Android could be one of the coolest things they, or anyone, has brought out.

I’ve got a Google Android phone and I love some of the apps that are available for it. They make things so much easier/quicker/more enjoyable etc and are truly what a smart phone should be full of.

I’ve also got ideas, lot of ideas. Ideas that involve Twitter, Blogs, GPS, football, music, places, t-shirts and more.

What I don’t have is any knowledge of Java, other than an awareness that it exists! I’ve got some rudimentary VB skills and a bit of Javascript so I looked in Java but it appears to need much more time devoting to it than I can give it. That means all my app ideas have been languishing around and I thought they would forever more.

Aber nicht.

Mais Non.

Pero No.

Google’s App Inventor has the power to change all that!

What is it?

A WYSIWYG tool allowing you to create apps without ANY programming knowledge.

How does it work?

It uses “blocks” of pre-written code that cover most actions you could want in an app and lets you drag and drop them together.

 

When I first saw this I assumed it would be very basic and that all the cool functionality would be missing but that’s not the case:

“There are even blocks to talk to services like Twitter.”

“App Inventor provides access to a GPS-location sensor”

“You can even have the app read the incoming texts aloud to you”

“use App Inventor to write Android apps that talk to your favourite web sites, such as Amazon and Twitter”

These quotes from the Google App Inventor site show that it can be used to create some really cool, funky and innovative apps…and that is exciting!

More Info:

The App Inventor site is:

http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/

The sign up form (which requires a Gmail address) is:

https://services.google.com/fb/forms/appinventorinterest/ 

The tutorials are here:

http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/learn/tutorials/index.html

The User Group is here:

http://groups.google.com/group/appinventor

 

I’ve requested access to the beta and am really hoping I get allowed on…this could be really great for me and my phone, others who may want my sure to be awesome apps (joke!), the Android community as a whole and Google in general.

Go sign up!

Tester forthcoming release of Microsoft’s MSN was a 8.5 beta update of the week with small adjustments and minor adjustments interface. As BetaNews reported, Microsoft opened the beta program for MSN last 8.5 months, which invites participants to join with the current test.

MSN 8.5 will serve as interim update before the release of MSN 9 full debut this fall. AOL has also recently a new version of its client software called AOL 8.0 Plus and publish additional testing is beta update, code-named “Blue Hawaii”.

Microsoft and AOL have recently pushed for more frequent updates and offers new features to the diminution of the bases against the subscribers due to the broadband battle.

The new beta version of MSN, build 8.50.0016.0801, now sports the MSN butterfly logo on the dashboard and the start screen. Other updates include the visual animation in the address bar of the client. Microsoft has a check added: “Names” button when composing an e-mail addresses to check for errors.

MSN 8.5 Beta can be downloaded via FileForum, but the software requires an MSN account.

Google launched its first mobile phone on 5 January. The Nexus One runs the company’s Android 2.1 OS and incorporates many key Google services, including Gmail, Maps and YouTube. The Nexus One, manufactured by HTC, bears a passing similarity to the iPhone, being 4mm taller, 3mm narrower, around 1mm thinner and 5g lighter. It has a clickable rollerball and supplements it with four soft buttons at the bottom of the 3.7in multitouch OLED screen. In other respects, however, the hardware represents a significant hike on the iPhone’s abilities, with a 5-megapixel camera compared with the 3-megapixel one on the iPhone 3GS, and the ability to record video at 720 x 480 pixels at 20fps compared with 640 x 480 pixels at 30fps on the iPhone 3GS. It features an on-screen keyboard, and supplements this with voice recognition, allowing you to speak into any text field. While the iPhone features 802.11b/g wifi networking, the Nexus One adds the faster 802.11n standard. It features 512MB of onboard Flash and Ram, as well as a 4GB Micro SD Card. The latter is expansible to 32GB, when it will match the maximum capacity of the iPhone 3GS. The iPhone wins back some ground with longer media use and standby times, although the Nexus One boasts similar or better talk times, depending on network. Google calls the Nexus One ‘an exemplar of what’s possible on mobile devices through Android, when cool apps meet a fast, bright and connected computer that fits in your pocket’. The launch marks a change in Google’s approach, as the company had previous restricted its activities in the mobile phone arena to licensing the Android OS to other handset manufacturers and developing applications for competing platforms. That pits the Nexus One against 20 rival handsets on 59 networks in 48 countries worldwide 48 countries worldwide.

Source of Information : MacUser January 15 2010

I tend to flip-flop when it comes to using a desktop client, or app for Gmail. Recently, I also found NetNewsWire which syncs to Google Reader in an IMAP kinda way (I know it isn’t actually IMAP, but that’s what it reminds me of).

On both of my Macs I have my Gmail account set up in both (Apple) Mail and Thunderbird. Before that I used the web interface for Gmail for quite a while, and before that even, I used the command line “pine” or sometimes “alpine” client. So, here I was using desktop applications that consume both RAM and CPU cycles on my Macs for something that could be done just as easily (if not better) on the web.

I switched back to the web. I like it better. What are your thoughts? Do you use the web, or a desktop app for Mail and RSS?