I recently bought a Samsung Vibrant phone to replace an outdated 2G iPhone. That iPhone had been my introduction to smart phones, and I really loved it. I bought it with a large dead spot on the touch screen, and then repaired it myself. It took a lot to make me let it go.  When Apple went to iOS4 without allowing the 2G in the building, I knew it was time.  I'd seen @GinaTrapani tweet about moving to Android and really loving it, but I was never sure about it for me.  The apps, I wondered, what about all the apps?  And the nice interface on the iPhone, what about that?

Well, I don't see Netflix -- yet.  Bus as far as the missing apps go, about everything I looked for that I was frequently using on my iPhone, I have found and have now on my Android based Samsung, which is running Android 2.1 - update1. And I truly like the interface better.  I like the way it's organized, I am learning to use and starting to like the Swype keyboard, and there is something about the way the screen and apps move that really appeals to me.

I now have my Android based Samsung Vibrant phone and as I had been a professional programmer for more than 15 years, after never getting around to creating an iPhone app, I decided I wanted to know what it would take to get my own basic application onto an Android phone. 

I remembered @mattcutts tweeted something awhile back about an easy way to build android apps so I did some digging and found this tweet: 

Google is starting to open up App Inventor for Android: http://goo.gl/ d1j5 It's an easy for people to build Android apps.  Tweet Link: http://twitter.com/mattcutts/status/18386090012

The App Inventor website looks like it has everything to get you started:

http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/

They show you how easy it might be in this youtube video.  I will be downloading this software and creating about as basic an app as you see in this video and will write a blog post on how that process went for me on this blog within the next couple of weeks.  If you've used App Inventor yourself, leave a comment.  I'd love to hear about your experience.