App Inventor

Here I built an application for users with special needs specifically users whom are mute or have some difficulty of verbal expression, this application helps express their feelings by predefined buttons which gives a sound responses whenever they are pressed.

Fig 1: App Inventor BETA web application

I have named this application as “SaySomething” and as seen above it contains buttons a good example is the button labeled “I miss you” below the image there are two sounds 1 and 2 each corresponding to the above buttons respectively, these are the files that would be played one for each button.

Fig 2: Button and sound connections

To test the application I have used my phone, as seen above I have connected to my device, there is an option to use an emulator in the case where one does not have an android phone.

 

Fig 3: Testing my “SaySomething” application

Tested and working, now what is left is to download and install it.

Fig 4: Installing “SaySomething” application

The application is successfully downloaded and installed. It is really easy with the features of drag and drop and anyone can develop their own applications on the go and another thing is that it is more suitable for personal use and can be distributed easily.

1. I encourage the use of android SDK and eclipse IDE for developers, which offer far more features than App Inventor.
2. There are no apparent codes for APP Inventor it is basically a drag and drop of graphics to build an application hence a developer can’t have the flexibility of incorporating the source codes to other application.
3. App Inventor application are not allowed in the android market for now.
4. It is better to use an actual phone rather than an emulator due to two reasons

• An emulator is slower in responses than a phone.
• The android version may differ and might give a slightly different output when used on an actual phone than what was expected. Hence it is best practice to use a real phone preferably the one you are going to run the application on.

Apart from all the above points, App Inventor is quite fun, easy and fast to developed personal non commercial applications of which can be shared among friends and family or even an organization to access all the company feature in one place.

www.alkathirikhalid.com

Thank you.