We’ve converted our Level 1 Android App Development Course to a multimedia-based learning environment that will walk you through everything from installing App Inventor to uploading your first App to the Android Market.
The video below gives you a sneak preview into how the Android App course is structured. If you would like to view a demo, you can view the Android App Course here.
MIT App Inventor Beta is now live and open to the public! For those of you who have been missing App Inventor or are eager to learn how to create your own Android apps without writing programming code, this is a truly great day!
A few notes about App Inventor Beta:
If you would like to learn how to build apps using App Inventor, check out our online App Inventor courses.
Rejoice and have fun with App Inventor Beta everyone!
I’ve been finishing up an online App Inventor course that will go live when MIT goes public with App Inventor. I have been playing around with the new App Inventor under development at MIT, and have a shocking discovery: It looks like the new App Inventor may have the capability to add multiple screens! This was a major drawback of Google’s App Inventor product, and took some fancy block editor work to make it appear as though your app had multiple screens.
Below is a screenshot of the new MIT App Inventor currently under construction. If you look closely, there are additional options in the components editor, and two of them are Add Screen and Remove Screen. I was able to add multiple screens in App Inventor without a problem, and sure enough, they showed up in the Components section as Screen1, Screen2 and Screen3.
Rejoice! It looks like this move of App Inventor to MIT might end up being a good thing for us all in the end. Please note that I really have no idea whether or not this functionality is going to be a part of MIT’s first public release, but at least we know they’re thinking about it. By the way, if you would like to try the new MIT App Inventor, read my App Inventor Development Server Tutorial on how to do that.
You probably know that Google shut App Inventor down on December 31, 2011. Most of you have probably just been living without App Inventor, but you don’t need to. This tutorial will show you how to run the App Inventor development server now, before the MIT App Inventor Launch.
The version of App Inventor I’m going to show you how to access is not a final build, and for that reason you will not be able to download your .APK files. There are also issues with saving your projects. It’s recommended that you download your source files each time you work on an app, then upload them when you’re ready to resume.
The process below is a tutorial for Windows PCs, but Mac and Linux systems should work as well.
App Inventor Development Server Instructions:
Google has officially shut down their version of App Inventor, but MIT is currently working to provide a “large-scale public web service” to the public similar to Google’s App Inventor sometime in the first quarter of 2012.
You can read more about MIT’s progress with App Inventor at MIT’s Developer Blog. You should also check out MIT’s Center for Mobile Learning which is the new home for App Inventor. If you would still like to have access to App Inventor while MIT is working on their roll out, you’ll find information on running your own App Inventor service here.
Here is what MIT had to say about the latest progress with App Inventor:
App Inventor for Android lets people create apps for Android phones by manipulating programming blocks in a web browser. Since July 2010, Google has run App Inventor as a large-scale public web service as a part of its Google Labs suite. With the wind down of Google Labs, as of December 31, 2011, Google ended support of App Inventor.
In order to ensure the future success of App Inventor, Google Research has funded the establishment of the Center for Mobile Learning at the MIT Media Lab. Sometime in the first quarter of 2012, the Center plans to provide a large scale App Inventor service for general public access, similar to the one Google ran. MIT’s will be posting progress on getting their public service up and running at MIT Developer’s Blog.
Please visit the MIT Center for Mobile Learning for more information on the future of App Inventor and other innovative mobile learning efforts.
