FAQ on using MIT App Inventor

Please check the MIT App Inventor Forums and the MIT App Inventor Blog for the latest developments on App Inventor’s service at the The MIT Center for Mobile Learning.

Current as of: 03/04/2012

Announcing: MIT App Inventor Open Beta Preview!

When did the Google App Inventor service shut down?

Google shut down their App Inventor service on December 31, 2011.

Help! I forgot to download my projects before Google shut their services down. Is there anything I can do to retrieve them?

In order to reduce the risk of projects being lost, Google published messages on the App Inventor site, by email, on the forums, and on the blog informing users of the need to download their projects before the end of 2011. Nevertheless, some users neglected to download their projects. Google is not legally allowed to transfer data from its servers to MIT, but... through last-minute heroic efforts, the Google App Inventor team was able to transfer almost all Google project data to users' Google Docs accounts. See Google's project data announcement of Jan. 12.

When will the public MIT App Inventor service be available?

MIT made plans to have the public instance of App Inventor to be available for the general public to access some time in the first quarter of 2012. We are delighted to announce that we have met this goal. Access MIT App Inventor now!

How do I upload my projects to the new MIT service now that it is available?

When you downloaded your projects to your computer a zip file of all your projects was created. Unzipping that will produce a folder with all your projects (each project itself is a zip file) and you can upload them individually to a new App Inventor service.

Will the projects I build on Google App Inventor run on the MIT public service?

Yes. The MIT instance of App Inventor will run almost exactly like the Google version.

How can I set up and run my own instance of App Inventor?

You’ll need to get help from someone who can run an App Engine service and deploy the MIT JAR code for you. The JAR file users group would be a good place to ask for this kind of help.

Is the source code of App Inventor available publicly?

Google has made the complete App Inventor code available under a free and open-source license. See theMIT App Inventor Blog announcement of January 20 for details.