Dubbed the App Inventor, Google's new do-it-yourself code tool lets you build applications for Android smartphones. In announcing the tool, Google stressed that you don't have to be a developer. In fact, App Inventor doesn't require any programming knowledge at all. Instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks of code that tell the app how to behave.

Michael Gartenberg, a partner at Altimeter Group, said Google is in many ways democratizing mobile application development by making it easy for people with innovative ideas who lack sophisticated programming skills to build an app.

"What this will actually inspire remains to be seen," Gartenberg said. "Some people have criticized the effort, saying there are going to be too many bad applications built. Others have praised it, saying this is going to open up application creation to a whole new set of users who might have great conceptual ideas but don't have the formal programming skills."

Create Your Own Games

Here's how it works, in Google's words: "The App Inventor offers created blocks for just about everything you can do with an Android phone, as well as blocks for doing 'programming-like' stuff -- blocks to store information, blocks for repeating actions, and blocks to perform actions under certain conditions. There are even blocks to talk to services like Twitter."

Google said games are a popular place to start, and was quick to add that you can build apps that tap into an Android-powered phone's sensors to move a ball through a maze based on tilting the phone. Not just for games, App Inventor also sets the stage for apps that inform and educate, such as quizzes, as well as apps that store data in a database, GPS-based apps that remind you where you parked your car, custom tour apps of places you frequent, and more.

"You can write an app that periodically texts 'missing you' to your loved ones, or an app 'No Text While Driving' that responds to all texts automatically with 'sorry, I'm driving and will contact you later'," Google said. "You can even have the app read the incoming texts aloud to you (though this might lure you into responding)."

Will Apple Follow Suit?

Although the App Inventor reminds Gartenberg of Apple's attempt to let non-programmers build applications in the 1980s, he's not expecting the iPhone maker to follow with a do-it-yourself mobile-apps interface -- at least not before seeing if Google's innovation catches momentum. Apple and Google have far different approaches to mobile operating system openness.

"Certainly in an age of phone personalization and personalizing my phone through applications, there is no greater personalization than the application that I can create for myself even if no one else wants to use that app but me," Gartenberg said. "We'll have to wait and see what this looks like when it's released, how easy it is for non-programmers to create these applications. More importantly, will we see a killer mobile application come from a total non-programmer?"