I am having a blast with AppInventor. I created an app and am now teaching my female students in my Women in Technology Club at my high school. Incidently, I am also working on my doctorate and did development for an app in JAVA with the Android SDK in Eclipse. Again, it is simple and it is fun.
I am so thankful for the ease of development and getting it to the phone. You don't need to put apps in the marketplace to download them.
Mrs. T (to my students)/Donna (to parents and colleagues)
Donna Thomas
HS Computer Science Teacher*#
* teaching Introduction to Game Design and Website Development, Game Design & Development, Website Development, Computer Programming I (C++), Computer Programming II/AP Comp Sci (JAVA) and Computer Programming III (JAVA/C#)
# sponsor of Computer Progamming Club (inc. Rubiks Cube Competition & the NA Computational Linguistics Competitions), Destination ImagiNation, Women-in-Technology Club, Game Club and Anime Club
Sherwood High School
300 Olney-Sandy Spring Road
Sandy Spring, MD 20860
office: 301.924.3247 cell: 301.639.5037
twitter: @compscirocks, @Mrs_Ts_Homework office location: C114
e-mail: donna_thomas@mcpsmd.org website: http://www.compscirocks.me/
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"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." ~ William Arthur Ward
-----Original Message-----
From: Dr John M. Morrison [mailto:morrison@ncssm.edu]
Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2011 9:01 PM
To: AP Computer Science
Cc: Adam Michlin; Calcpage
Subject: Re: [ap-compsci] Android App Inventor
The iron grip of Apple on the IPhone is arbitrary and capricious. Apple
reserves the right to reject any app. It's a monopoly and that doesn't
sit well with me. As a result I, refuse to develop for Apple.
The Android is a much more interesting
platform, and it offers an API for Java programmers. Beware tho --
people need to be good Java programmers before tackling the phone
APIs.
JMM
On 12/30/2010 09:40 AM, Adam Michlin wrote:
> Just about everything is less restrictive than the Apple App Store and I
> say that with (almost) no intended sarcasm. So, yes, the Google Android
> marketplace is much less restrictive than Apple's.
>
> App Inventor is very much cross platform (Windows, Linux, OSX) as it is
> web and java based (that is, the tools for graphical programming run on
> java.. there is no java coding involved). The only drawbacks so far are
> that installing the Android dev tools can be somewhat of a pain,
> installing drivers for the myriad of Android phones (and getting them to
> actually work) is a big pain, and there is a bit of command line mumbo
> jumbo that you really need to know to get it working (that is, getting
> developed apps physically on to the Android device or even into the
> emulator) in some cases. Oh, and on a dual core pentium with 4gig of RAM
> the emulator is GoGetACupCoffee slow to boot up.
>
> I could live with having to buy a mac to develop iApplications, but I
> draw the line at having to have the students pay $99 a year for the mere
> privilege of moving code on that purchased mac to code on a purchased
> iDevice (and said $99 doesn't even get them App Store privileges). Apple
> has a program for colleges, but no one seems to care enough to expand it
> to the high schools.
>
> It is possible to learn Objective C on Linux and GNUStep, which can run
> on Linux, would set up a student nicely for iDevice programming since
> they're both based on NeXTStep. This, however, brings new meaning to the
> term "delayed gratification".
>
> Best wishes,
>
> -Adam
>
>> Interesting, is the Droid market less restrictive than Apple? Also,
>> is app inventor cross platform? I use Linux primarily in class.
>> There was some talk about iPod dev tools being ported to Linux.
>> Sorry, Steve Jobs, I'm not getting a Mac just to develop iPhone apps!
>>
> ====