Category Archives: App Inventor News

App Inventor News

MIT App Inventor team still needs donations to make iOS/iPhone App Inventor happen!

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The MIT App Inventor team still needs donations by 31 December 2017 to make the iOS version of MIT App Inventor for iPhone and iPad a reality!

They are just under half way to their fundraising goal. If you have been thinking about contributing a donation – but got busy and forgot to follow up – now would be a great time to help them out!

Their crowdfunding donation web page is here.

Here’s the text of the letter the MIT Team emailed to supporters:

“We’re proud of the reach of MIT App Inventor—more than 6 million users worldwide—and we’re grateful for everyone who’s tried us out. Some users have really gotten to know our system, constantly testing its limits, teaching other users, and helping us improve. It’s been amazing to see what you can do.

We’re so thankful for your help, and today we’re hoping that you might be willing to help us out in a different way. As you know, there’s been an incredible demand to release App Inventor for iOS—and we’re doing it now. To help cover the cost of developing App Inventor for iOS—which includes salary and benefits for two full-time employees—we’re hoping to raise $100,000 through a crowdfunding campaign that runs through December 31st.

As one of our users, we would love it if you were willing to be an ambassador for this campaign: share it through friends and colleagues by email or social media. It’s easy to do, and only takes a few minutes. If you’re interested, just reply to this email, and we can sign you up with a custom, shareable link to spread the message about our campaign.

MIT App Inventor remains, and will always be, free to use—we promise. Central to our mission is the idea that everyone should be able to learn to code, no matter their background. If you’re able, we hope you can help us make App Inventor available to even more people, across platforms, by sharing our campaign.

Give Now

Or, if you prefer to give by Paypal, donate here.

Hal Abelson and the MIT App Inventor Team”

 

Disclaimer – I have no connection to MIT or the MIT App Inventor team. I am just a enthusiastic software expert that thinks MIT App Inventor is a tremendous advancement in software development!

App Inventor News, General, Tips, Video

App Inventor to run on iPhones? Yes. How about Windows and Mac OS X? #AppInventor #Stem

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MIT has announced that App Inventor will run on iPhones and iPads, hopefully by spring of 2018. You can help make that happen by making a donation to their effort – go to http://appinventor.mit.edu and follow the links to make a donation!

Did you know that you can run App Inventor Android apps on Windows and Mac OS X? Sure can!

All you need is to install an Android simulator for Windows or Mac and then install your App Inventor .apk app into the simulator. This way you can run your apps on Windows or Mac!

This short video shows you how to do that – take a look!

 

There are several Android simulators for both Windows and Mac OS X.

This video demonstrates using BlueStacks for Windows (also available for Mac OS X) and Nox App Player for Mac OS X.

App Inventor News

MIT App Inventor team receives Distinguished Leadership Award from the Mass Technology Leadership Council

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The MIT App Inventor team accepted the Council’s Distinguished Leadership Award for working to make application development universally accessible.

Source: Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah, athenahealth, and Toast Take Top Honors at 20th Annual Mass Technology Leadership Awards

Congratulations to the team! Well done! Well deserved!

Android Development, App Inventor News, General

Appy Builder – an alternative to MIT App Inventor, with more features

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AppyBuilder is a commercial version of MIT App Inventor that, for a monthly subscription fee, provides access to many additional components and features. Some of these features include monetization services that work with advertising networks to display ads with your apps, plus unique features like SQL Lite and the Android Material Design user interface.  You can also add in-app purchases.

There is also a free version that operates similar to MIT App Inventor. You can set up your free account at the Appy Builder web site or sign up for a subscription account with added features.

AppyBuilder is based on MIT App Inventor – if you know how to use App Inventor, you’ll find AppyBuilder very easy to use. The company behind AppBuilder also does custom app development and mobile web site development.

Click on their “Tell me more” button, and then page down to see the description of features and services, and subscription options.

I’ve played a bit with the “free” version but I could see buying a monthly subscription to access several of their enhanced features. Their lead architect also has a blog including this tutorial on how to use their components to access the web, camera and upload photos to a server using App Builder.

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Since I moved the web site from my own server over to the WordPress platform, you will often see posts authored by “Coldstreams”, or sometimes “AppinventorPlus”, rather than my name, EdwardM, that appeared on the old web site. I have 4 separate accounts on WordPress and set them up so that my Coldstreams account can update any of the blogs, including this one. Most of my posts will likely appear with the “Coldstreams” name, but it is still just me 🙂 … EdwardM

App Inventor News, Uncategorized

Thunkable turns programming into a drag-and-drop solution – based on App Inventor

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Thunkable is a spin off of the MIT App Inventor project. If you can program in App Inventor, you can program in Thunkable. Their goal is to get the App Inventor concept running on both Android and iOS (iPhone).

Visit Thunkable at http://thunkable.com

Thunkable, built on top of the open-source project MIT App Inventor, is a visual programming tool

Source: Thunkable turns programming into a drag-and-drop solution – SD Times

There are indications that MIT App Inventor will focus on education and training applications and that spin offs will offer more powerful (and likely complex) features such as increased database functionality or media handling. These new features, oriented perhaps towards businesses and organizations (rather than education) might become a subscription service – but with added value in terms of features and capabilities.

App Inventor News, Uncategorized

Interest in App Inventor continues to grow

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The following chart comes from Google Trends, and reflects the growing interest in App Inventor, based on searches for “MIT App Inventor” on Google.

MITAppInventorTrend

Because App Inventor has been viewed as a training tool in K-12 level schools, and some introductory college courses, searches for App Inventor information have gone down during the northern hemisphere summer months, when school is not normally in session. This accounts for the up and down movement in the trend line.

This chart shows a relative level of interest for the top countries searching for “MIT App Inventor”.

Region

Android Development, App Inventor News, Software, STEM Education, Uncategorized

FIRST Tech Challenge (Robotics) can now use App Inventor

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Early in 2015, FIRST announced that the First Tech Challenge (FTC) robotics platform would be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor (the same processor used in most Android phones).

Starting with the Fall 2015 FTC competition, students can now control the robot using App Inventor. (Go here and page down to App Inventor Download and Resources and follow that link).

FTC uses a version of App Inventor that is installed on a local computer rather than running over the Internet, as we do with MIT App Inventor.

About FIRST

FIRST robotics is an “academic sport” for the mind as teams are faced with the challenge of conceptualizing, designing and building a complex robot to solve a challenge. The Mission of FIRST Robotics:

“Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.”

Volunteering

I am in my 8th year of volunteering as an engineering mentor to high school robotics teams. I am currently a volunteer with Glencoe High School’s Team #4488 “Shockwave” team where I am the lead mentor for Apps Software. Our team is a student-led team. The students make the design choices and implement the solutions. The mentors assist with technical and management training and specialized learning.

Our team, like many FIRST teams, is run similar to a business with separate sub-teams not only for robotics (mechanical, electrical, robot programming, CAD) but also other functions (marketing, business, strategy, web and applications software, graphic design) and even an animation team. Our applications team produces support software for the entire team by creating custom tablet apps and Windows applications software that assist in various information collection, analysis and processing functions. Last year, the team also created a robotics game that is available in the Google Play store.

There are many opportunities for volunteering – from technical engineering to business and marketing, graphic and art design, wood and metal working, CAD, and teaching. Visit usfirst.org to learn more!

App Inventor News, STEM Education, Uncategorized

App Inventor course available in Spanish

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Estructurado en 8 módulos y con más de 146 clases este curso es ideal para aquellas personas que, sin tener idea de programación, quieren tener un curso completo de App Inventor paso a paso y basado en la metodología de aprender haciendo.

Curso de Desarrollo de aplicaciones móviles Android con App Inventor

The 22 hour online course is offered through the udemy.com

(I did not make clear – sorry – this course is from Professor José Luis Núñez and he is offering it through udemy.com. I am not involved in this at all – just sharing the link – Ed)