Google App Inventor: Anyone can develop, but will quality suffer?

Google is known for carrying out ideas simply to see what can be done with them.  A case in point is the Google Fiber project.  The latest, however, might very well change the way that mobile application development happens.

Google App Inventor is, as of today, a graduate of the Google Labs.  It’s free software that aims to let anyone make an application.  Check the video, and we’ll talk more:

Google has tested App Inventor with a decidedly non-programmer base of users. Starting with sixth grade students, then working through university undergraduates, App Inventor went through over a year of development before graduation.

Of course, Google is attributing the success of the project as a whole to the open nature of the Android platform.

The question that will invariably be raised, however, is about overall application quality. By Google’s own admission, these aren’t the prettiest applications available. They’re not the best designed, nor are they likely to be the most profitable.

However, these factors don’t appear to be Google’s direction. The idea is to give Joe User the ability to make a functional (if not pretty) application, and to see what will become of it.

Will it negatively impact the Android Market? It’s not likely. Let’s face it, even though we’re approaching 100,000 applications in the Market, the good ones rise to the top very quickly. There are literally thousands of useless, trash-directed applications, but they tend to get buried in a hurry.

Moving forward, we’ll be taking a look at some applications made with the App Inventor, and give you some highlights soon.