Invites for Google’s Android App Inventor Begin Rolling Out
| by Kevin Krause on July 27th, 2010 |
Google announced its App Inventor a few weeks ago with the promise to usher in a new era of Android software creation through their simplified, visual programming interface. At the time of announcement those interested in testing their hand at Android app development were only able to sign up for the opportunity to receive an invite to the service, and it now seems those invites are beginning to roll out. A quick scan of Twitter shows that quite a few would-be Android programmers are reporting that they can now download and begin toying around with the full App Inventor software.
One of our readers was kind enough to send in the full text of the invitation e-mail going out:
Welcome to App Inventor for Android!
The Google account that you are receiving this email on has been given access to App Inventor.
We recommend you start your app building adventures by working through the Getting Started material. You might also want to read more about App Inventor and take a look at some sample apps. Finally, you can ask questions and get help by signing up for the App Inventor Google Group.
Thanks!
Google’s App Inventor Team
Any other Phandroid faithful receiving good tidings from Google today? For those unfamiliar with the App Inventor check out Google’s demo video below and prepare for an onslaught of “Hello World” and “Pet My Kitty” apps.
[thanks to Bas for tipping us off to this!]

1. Drizzle wrote on July 27, 2010
Still hadnt gotten my email yet…want it please
2. swehes wrote on July 27, 2010
I’m waiting for my invitation as well.
3. Eric wrote on July 27, 2010
Got my email, but was shortly saddened when I figured out that AppInventor was coded not to allow email addresses with periods, dashes,etc.
Waiting on the bug fix.
4. AndGuy wrote on July 27, 2010
Just rolling out??? I got mine a week or so ago…so did a few others I know of. Maybe they are handling a second beta invite roll out or something.
5. Phillip wrote on July 27, 2010
I got my invite. I had some trouble getting it to sync up and run the app on my Droid X but with some tinkering (trying over and over and turning the phone off and on) I was able to get it to work. It was insanely easy to create a very basic app (take the text from a text box and update the label text with it when I click a button) though I haven’t tried anything complicated yet.
I’d love to see it connecting to some API’s on the web. It looks like it’s been done in some of the sample apps.
6. tomq wrote on July 27, 2010
hopping my invite comes through
7. Sal wrote on July 27, 2010
Got mine 2 weeks back.
8. KDroidX wrote on July 27, 2010
I havent got mine either.. think there is a way someone could put it up for download? :)
9. jasonv wrote on July 27, 2010
still waiting for mine. would like to get started to see if this kinda thing is for me.
10. maxnicks wrote on July 27, 2010
sure like to see mine.
11. TimMatrix wrote on July 27, 2010
Me too. I am waiting for this App Inventor… I’ve a few apps in mind, but do not have the expertise to program at machine code level (c or Java, or whatever) as I do not have the time for that. This App Inventor is perfect for people with no programming experience.
Can’t wait…..
12. Fahad wrote on July 27, 2010
does anyone remember the cartoon funnybones? the music in the reminds me of that.. :P
13. Pieter wrote on July 27, 2010
I’m excited! I just hope that Google will leave trace amounts of code in these AppInventor apps that will place them in a separate category.
14. BR wrote on July 27, 2010
Got my access today too, looking forward to seeing what it can do…
15. Alex wrote on July 27, 2010
@TheMatrix
I don’t have patience for machine code either. Debugging a bunch of 0s and 1s is a bitch!
16. Paramecium wrote on July 27, 2010
Nice!
17. Spencer wrote on July 27, 2010
Nothin yet
18. ari-free wrote on July 27, 2010
should be really great for engineers. Got a problem to solve? just whip out an app on this and you have it on your phone.
19. KJ wrote on July 28, 2010
Suck it apple
20. William Gazina wrote on July 28, 2010
Where is my invite? And why do I need an invite? Just label it beta, and release the source as is. Keep working on it or not. Welcome to the future.
1999 Called. They want you to know how great Free and Open Source Software is.
21. Maj wrote on July 28, 2010
google, focus on enhancing the Android Eclipse plugins instead of this, for instance building an xml UI manually is pain in the *ss
22. Nick wrote on July 28, 2010
got mine this morning, already built 2 simple apps, its like building a code with jigsaw puzzles, its kinda fun and looks like 6yo could learn it, i think this will become really big for teaching programing more so cause it gets down to basic structer and is easy to see whats happening without concetrating on syntax errors
i’m still planning to keep developing my java and eclipe skills, but this is gonna get alot of use and i can make stuiped stuff to show off to my friends in the mean time, and who knows mabey even some usefull apps, i gotta a tablet of programs i was planning to make in the next year or so, got feeling it will be sooner now :)
THANK YOU GOOGLE!!!
this is well worth any extra crap ware that comes
23. Hearthatvoiceagain wrote on July 28, 2010
Can someone who has used it answer a couple of questions.
1. How much control do you get over your Apps appearance?
2. Can you actually export uncompiled code for use in an IDE like eclipse.
24. Jasim wrote on July 28, 2010
STILL WAITING!!!!!! :(
25. Frank D. wrote on July 28, 2010
@Hearthatvoiceagain .. I agree. i’m VERY interested to know if I can just create my “basic” app. and import that into ECLIPSE to ‘tweak’ it and make the changes necassary to make a well.. 6th grader wrote this programing into something more sophisticated
26. Gary wrote on August 3, 2010
From everything thing I have read, you will NOT be able to transfer an app inventor app back and forth with Eclipse. There is no Java code created with appinventor
27. Alex wrote on August 19, 2010
Its not a download its a website where you build your app..
28. Kingson wrote on August 29, 2010
can somebody post up the website to the app inventor?? i want it please… please… please…