If you are this sort of armchair developer, you might want to check out the MIT App Inventor. The software is a developer platform that is now available to anyone who wants to grab it as open source.

Here is where the real innovation of MIT App Inventor shines through because it makes programming the application very visual. Each function is represented by a colorful jigsaw puzzle-like block.

Then MIT and Google open-sourced the App Inventor code in January. Now, the project has hit beta as MIT promised it would by the end of the first quarter of 2012.

App Inventor — a Google cast-out that is now maintained by MIT — is a graphical tool that unlocks the power of an Android handset to those with the most basic of programming understanding.

"At MIT, App Inventor will adopt an enriched research agenda with increased opportunities to influence the educational community. In a way, App Inventor has now come full circle, as I actually ...