How to Create a Basic Mobile App Using MIT App Inventor

5 min readFeb 20, 2023

Mobile applications have become an essential part of our lives. They make our daily routines easier and more convenient. MIT App Inventor is a web-based application development tool that allows anyone, regardless of their coding skills, to create mobile applications.

MIT App Inventor was first made available by Google and is now maintained by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It is free to use, and it is made to be used by a variety of users, with or without technical knowledge. The tool provides an intuitive interface that allows users to design the user interface and add functionality to their app using a drag-and-drop approach.

This tutorial will guide you through the process of creating a basic mobile app using MIT App Inventor.

There are five steps in this tutorial:

· Step 1: Setting up the environment

· Step 2: Designing the app

· Step 3: Setting properties

· Step 4: Adding functionality

· Step 5: Publishing the app

Step 1: Setting up the environment

Before we start, you need to set up your development environment. Go to the MIT App Inventor website and create an account. Here is the link to the website: https://appinventor.mit.edu/ and this is how the Homepage looks like when you click on the link:

Once you have created an account, click on the “Create Apps!” button on the top left of the page to launch the App Inventor Designer.

After you click on “Create Apps!” and start a new project, this is the screen you will see:

Let’s create your first app now!

Step 2: Designing the app

As you can see, the App Inventor Designer interface is user-friendly and straightforward. The left-hand side of the screen contains the palette of components that you can use to design your app. Component is the feature that help to provide an easy way to add interactivity and make your app more engaging for users. To add a component, drag and drop it onto the phone emulator screen on the right-hand side of the screen.

For example, let’s create an app that displays a message when a button is pressed. To do this, we will need a button and a label. To add a button, drag and drop the “Button” component onto the screen. To add a label, drag and drop the “Label” component onto the screen. Position the button and label as desired.

Step 3: Setting properties

Once you have added the components, you can set their properties by clicking on them. The property in app development is considered as the characteristic or setting of a component that determines its appearance or behavior. For example, to set the text of the label, click on the label and enter the text in the “Text” property field. You can also set the text of the button, its background color, and many other properties.

Step 4: Adding functionality

Now that we have designed the user interface of our app, we need to add functionality to it. Some functionalities are button clicks that perform an action, text boxes that allow user to type in, audio or video players that user can play the sounds on. To add functionalities to our app, we will use the App Inventor Blocks Editor.

Click on the “Blocks” button in the top right corner of the App Inventor Designer to launch the Blocks Editor. After that, the main screen will be switched to another interface, which looks like this:

The Blocks Editor consists of two sections: the “Palette” on the left and the “Blocks Area” on the right. The Palette contains all the blocks you can use to add functionality to your app. The Blocks Area is where you drag and drop the blocks to create the code for your app.

To add functionality to our app, we will use the “When Button1.Click” block. Drag this block from the Palette and drop it into the Blocks Area. Next, drag the “Set Label1.Text to” block from the Palette and drop it into the “When Button1.Click” block.

Finally, enter the message you want to display when the button is clicked into the “to” field of the “Set Label1.Text to” block.

Step 5: Publishing the app

Once you are satisfied with your app, you can publish it to the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. To do this, you need to export the app as an APK file. An APK (Android Package Kit) file is the format used by Android devices.

To export your app, click on the “Projects” menu in the top left corner of the App Inventor Designer. Select “Export Selected Project (.apk)” and follow the instructions.

You will need to sign up for a Google Play Developer account or Apple Developer Program account to publish your app to the respective app stores. Once your app is published, it will be available to download and install by millions of users.

Conclusion

Creating a mobile app using MIT App Inventor is a straightforward and enjoyable process. By utilizing its drag-and-drop interface and pre-built components, you can easily design app’s user interface and add functionality to it. Even if you don’t have any coding experience, you can create a basic app in a matter of minutes. We have gone through how to set up the environment, design the app, set up the properties, add functionalities to the app, and publishing the app. At this point, if you follow all the steps listed above, you can now create and launch a simple app by yourself. You can create apps for anything you can think of, such as education, entertainment, sustainability, business and so on. With a little bit of creativity, experimentation, practice and patience, you can create more complex apps and even publish them to the app stores. I hope this tutorial has been helpful to you and that you will continue to explore the world of mobile app development.