Make Apps for Free for the Best Android Devices

There are two great ways to create Android apps for free. Both are relatively easy to use but with very different functionality.

The first is App Inventor for Android. It’s completely free with lots of included features. You can easily create simple apps but also it contains powerful advanced features that you can get into if you’ve got the knowledge to pursue such features. But don’t let that scare you away if you’re a beginner. You don’t need to have programming skills to be able to create a complete app.

That being said though, App Inventor for Android, does have a bit of a learning curve to it. If you want something that requires very little skill or mental involvement at all then AppsBar might be the right choice for you. Anyone can register for free and in less than 15 minutes you can create a variety of apps for both Android and the iPhone. Users are given a choice of five different main categories for their app and then from there there is a variety of sub-categories to choose from. There are many various elements that can be included in each app.

Best Android Devices feels that there is a couple big drawbacks to using AppsBar for creating apps. The first is that you can only create free apps. So there is no chance of financial benefit from your work, though the amount of work you do to create your Android app is very minimal. Another drawback is in their terms and conditions. In a very paraphrased nutshell it says that you own the app but they retain the rights to distribute it worldwide, change it, sublicense it, and pretty much do whatever they want without ever having to compensate you. That’s not a very good situation. Remember the website is free to create Android and iPhone apps, but they are paying the bills somehow. Use caution with this website.

If neither App Inventor for Android or AppsBar seems like the right fit for you then Best Android Devices recommends either learning to program yourself or outsource the app you want to create to an established company.

Amazon.com currently has an app store for Android in development that will be a game changer in the Android market place. Why is this? Won’t they simple be listing mostly the same apps as is already available in the Google App Store? Yes that’s true but there is another factor that hasn’t really been reported on much.

Currently Android phones and tablets can be really price and are almost always tied to a specific wireless carrier, which means contracts and high monthly fees. It also means that the carriers sometimes lock down the software to make you use specific products that wouldn’t otherwise use and they limit your options to do otherwise. Verizon Wireless itself is even developing it’s own app store and you can just bet that that will be as locked down and restricted as the iPhone store.

There was an easy solution to escaping this carrier lock-down already, which is buying generic android devices from China. These are often times several hundred dollars cheaper than US brand name devices and most times do a good job at copying the name brand counterparts. Most generic imported Android devices suffered one big drawback though: they couldn’t access the Google App store. This was especially a problem with the Android tablets.

This is where the Amazon App store comes in. You can get one of these generic Android devices from China, save yourself hundreds of dollars on the device and on carrier charges and now, thanks to Amazon you’ll have access to hundreds of thousands of apps well.

I’ve been paying attention to the generic Android tablet market for awhile now but the issue of not being able to access the app store was holding me back. Now though, it looks like buying a generic Android device is about to get a lot more attractive.

Folks in Europe will be able to get their hands on two different Facebook phones powered by Android sometime in the first half of 2011, while those of us in the states will have to wait until the second half of the year. These phones are being developed by INQ and they won’t necessarily carry Facebook’s name on the outside of them.

Facebook hasn’t yet agreed to that but my guess is that eventually they will. The stir that was created a few days ago when rumors first surfaced about a possible Facebook phone (rumors denied by Facebook at the time) and now with this new information you can just bet that executives at the social media giant are making some calculated decisions about just how much consumers might latch onto a phone carrying their brand name.

Personally, I don’t see much point in making a phone that caters so specifically to one website but I also don’t think that I am as absorbed in Facebook as some people are. Still, it will be interesting to see what these phones end up being like and whether or not consumers line up to buy them.

If you’re like me,  you shied away from Apple’s overpriced iPad and have been eagerly awaiting an Android device alternative that could rival it’s capabilities but not destroy your budget at the same time.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab is actually a couple inches smaller than the iPad, which in the world of portability that’s actually a good thing. Especially because it allows the Galaxy Tab to weigh a good deal less than the iPad as well.

Because the Galaxy Tab is running Android, there is already a huge app market available to it. True, the apps were designed for phones and not for tablets but here again is why the smaller size of the Galaxy Tab works. The apps that you run on it that were originally intended for a phone screen, won’t look quite as out of place on the 7 inch Tab screen as they would on a larger tablet.

Other features include Wi-fi, Bluetooth, full html web browsing, and front and rear facing cameras. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is going to be available shortly from all four major US carriers, which is something else the iPad can’t do. Here’s hoping the Samsung Galaxy Tab is wildly successful and takes a good deal of market share away from Apple.