The Android Army, Series Two

After sadly missing out on series 1, I was determined to secure myself a box of Series 2 Android Mini's. So much so that I went to the effort of creating an account with DyzPlastic the night prior to the release so I'd be all ready if they went quickly. I even made sure to juggle my work schedule so I'd be on lunch just before the release.

With that in mind you could probably be forgiven if you thought I'd managed to secure myself a box of this awesome Android goodness... but you'd be dead wrong. That's right, even with the preparation and the shirking of work duties I was still unable to put a purchase through. The DyzPlastic online shop buckled under the pressure and by the time I got an order through there was no more stock. Luckily all was not lost, Mazza came to the rescue with some quick thinking and managed to secure a box from Plastic Heart.

While luck deserted me when purchasing, it was certainly there when opening. I managed to score all but two of the Android designs, both of which will be arriving any day now.

App Inventor Experiment - Advanced Tutorials Ahoy

With Maria flying through the basic tutorials (when time permits), she has completed the first of the advanced tutorials Mole Mash. After a few hairy moments like understanding why one global variable was being assigned to the other and the purpose of assigning a value to a global value that never changes, she was at the end of her tutorial staring with uncertainty at the extra activities. Oh yes dear readers, you heard correctly, not only must she work through the tutorials but she must also create solutions to the extra exercises at the end, and of course, all without help.

After some frustration, head scratching and me fighting the almost overpowering urge to rip the keyboard away from her and do it myself, she had completed the extra activities and was playing her first self created Android game. Unfortunately it was at that point she started to promptly shut up be quiet so she could beat the hell out of the poor defenceless mole.

Now onto some concerning observations. I am starting to witness some troubling changes in the participant. It is my observation that with every successful tutorial she completes her head size increases in size by a small fraction. Even more of concern is that the participant has starting to consider herself as an Android developer. Recently she has even gone to such lengths as to verbalize such a thing. I suppose this was likely to happen eventually, but in such a short time period? Maybe I should stop this before her head becomes so big that she can no longer fit through doors.

App Inventor Experiment - Kick Off

The App Inventor experiment has kicked off with Maria completing her first tutorial, the dreaded HelloPurr.

It was a stuttering start and after 1 or 2 unanswered questions I think she started to understand that I was unwilling unable to help her throughout the experiment even for the tutorials. I have to admit it was really hard to hold back the laughter as she struggled with the first initial hurdles. However, that was all the funny I was afforded as she tore through the tutorial in less than 20 minutes and was playing with her first complete Android app before I realized what was happening. Unfortunately I quickly realized she was using the app to terrorize the cat with meowing sounds. Perhaps she had ulterior motives for getting through the tutorial so fast?

App Inventor Experiment - The Criteria

As I promised in last post behold the experiment's criteria:

• The app must be developed via Google's App Inventor
• It should use persistent storage to store and retrieve data
• It should display the stored data to the screen in some way
• It must have a real world use and cannot be a usual "hello world app"
• The interface must be considerably polished and not just thrown together

The criteria make for a pretty tough challenge for any developer, let alone somebody with no previous development experience and thinks if statements are what you use when deciding what cooking ingredient to use. So good luck to Maria, she's going to need it.

Google App Inventor Experiment Commences

On opening up my in-box on Saturday I discovered a pleasant, if over due, surprise left to me by Google. With invitation in hand I had a quick conversation with Maria at The Gourmet Challenge who seemed a little nervous but acknowledged her petition as my lab rat.

For those of you who are asking yourself what exactly I am talking about have a quick read of this.

I promised on the previous post that I would post up the requirements of the app. Unfortunately I didn't get to look at App Inventor over the weekend so I'm not exactly sure of what it can and can't do. I will however post that information in the next couple of days.

Still Waiting Invite

Just a quick update about the App Inventor experiment. Everything is raring to go and the participant is still chained to desk to avoid any escape attempts. All that is required is an invite from Google so we can get started. As soon as the invite finds its way to my inbox I'll commense the torture experiment.

Google App Inventor Experiment

The Introduction

Google is releasing one very interesting product for trial soon. The new product which is called App Inventor allows the development of Android applications using a simple drag and drop interface and requires very little coding. This will allow people with little or no previous programming experience to develop simple apps. At least that's the idea, but will it really allow somebody with no previous programming or development experience to create a polished well designed application?

The Experiment

There is only one real way to answer the above question and that is to test it in an experiment. The experiment will be an application development task which will be performed by somebody who has no previous programming or development experience. Their technical experience will be of an average level. While the task is being undertaken the participant will only have access to Google's App Inventor and any documentation that is provided with it, no other help will be available.

The Candidate

After much consideration I have found the perfect participant. Maria from The Gourmet Challenge fits the criteria perfectly. She has no previous coding experience and average technical skills which allow her to use a computer but sadly only allow her to complain when things don't work. As an added benefit she is very creative which should help with the initial application design. Apart from all that she still owes me one due to an interesting post she wrote about me a little while ago. I believe the words she used in that post were "sad tragic tech gadget geek".

In the next post I will outline the specifics of the application criteria.

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