Post
By SF Gate
Google made a big move today, announcing a new tool called “App Inventor” that, in theory, will let normal people today without programming experience to make simple apps for Android phones.
Most folks obviously won’t use it. And it may flood the Android app market with a bunch of garbage apps, causing some trouble. However the point that many people today now can do something they weren’t able to do ahead of.
Meanwhile, the only way to develop apps for Apple’s iPhone is to learn the complex Objective-C programming language and build apps using Apple’s excellent but expert-level app development kit. (Developing web apps with the iPhone and Android is easier, but even now requires coding; App Inventor appears to be drag-and-drop.)
So, is Apple going to have to respond? Will it create the equivalent of “HyperCard to the iPhone,” or the analogy I applied earlier, “iMovie for iPhone Apps?”
Personally, I’d love to be able to make simple apps for your iPhone without learning how to program Objective-C, without learning what the difference between frameworks and objects is, etc.
It can be certainly something Apple could do technically, and could do well; the company excels at taking potentially-complex tasks — editing movies, pictures, etc. — and turning them into easy things that almost anyone could learn, via apps like iMovie, iPhoto, etc.
And if you recall, the original HyperCard platform inside 1980s and 1990s was designed to make programming for your Mac super-easy, even with some complexity included. I wasted countless hours in middle university playing HyperCard games, which weren’t as cool as console- or PC-based games, but were nevertheless entertaining.
So whether or not Apple responds with a simple iPhone app creation tool isn’t a technical query, but a philosophical one particular: Does Apple want to give normal individuals the ability to create simple iPhone apps? Or does it want to keep the iPhone app market reserved for folks who can either code computer apps or afford to hire a developer?
Or, to use Mac terms, does it want the app-making equivalent of iMovie when it is very only shipping Final Cut Pro today?
We could see the company going either way.
Apple certainly has a background of making consumer-focused tools for previously pro-only tasks. And Steve Jobs lately brought up HyperCard during his interview on stage in the All Things D conference, proving that he hasn’t forgotten about it.
Plus, even if the majority of iPhone apps created while using new tool are “crapware” — and if Apple’s excuse is really a quality-control issue — it is very not like the iPhone App Store is ONLY amazing, useful apps today. (We assume Apple would nevertheless require all apps to go through the App Store, versus allowing persons to sideload apps created with this new tool.) There’s already a lot of junk there.
And building a very basic development tool might encourage more individuals to eventually learn how to program Objective-C, or whatever iPhone apps are coded with with the future, giving the iPhone platform a stronger farm system.
But we could also see Apple saying that it wants to keep total quality control over apps, and keep the App Store a serious place for professionals, even if it isn’t. Or perhaps it wants HTML5 web apps to be the playground for amateurs, not the App Store.
Or perhaps Apple just does not have the cost-free development cycles to build a second SDK for beginners, when it is very already taxing itself to get iOS 4 ready for your iPad, future Apple TV devices, etc. That’s why it took several years with the iPhone to get copy-and-paste, soon after all.
However the pressure is certainly coming on from Google. And as long as Android App Inventor isn’t total garbage, it would make sense for Apple to at least think about a HyperCard-like development platform for that iPhone.
What do you think? Is Apple going to compete with Google below? Will anyone actually use Google’s tools? Will “HyperCard to the iPhone” ever exist?
