Google just catapulted itself into the realm of mobile development with its new App Inventor product. While for some an automated Android app development platform is welcome for others it will be long overdue. Either way, it is a significant and important offering.

App Inventor allows for visual application design using blocks to specify application logic. According to the official site, "The App Inventor team has 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."

Those interested in testing out the system will need an invitation which can be requested through this form. Google is positioning this currently to the education market but it should not be long before the project is rolled out to a wider audience - namely Web marketers.

According to the Register the App Inventor project is led by MIT computer scientist Harold Abelson, the founding director of the Free Software Foundation, Public Knowledge, and the Creative Commons who's now working at Google."