ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Google AI Studio now lets you make your own personal apps.
- The apps bypass the public Play Store, but you can share with friends.
- Apps you create will work on your own device.
Are you tired of ad overload in free, single-task apps? Or, can you not find an app that fits a weirdly specific need? Now you can make custom apps for your own Android phone, even if you have zero coding experience.
One Tuesday, Google announced that anyone with a standard Google account can build personal apps in Google AI Studio. These apps will run on your own device, launched from a private part of Google Play, and won’t be included in the public Play Store.
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How it works
To get started, access the tool in Google AI Studio.
There is an app creator in AI Studio, but that’s intended for professional developer accounts and requires USB debugging connected to a PC. This new tool works with that same creator, but it lets you install your app on a personal device with a single click and later directly share it instead of utilizing a public Play Store listing.
In the tool, you describe what you want in a prompt, and AI does the rest. While the app is under creation, you’ll see options to add features you might have missed. You can make light edits once the app is complete, or you can completely scrap it and start again.
There’s no charge to experiment and build an app.
How I plan to use it
Custom Android apps make app development a much more personal and potentially user-friendly experience. It could be a fantastic option for replacing apps on your phone that you only use for a single thing – like a habit tracker, a calculator or converter, or a specific counter or timer. The ability to make an app with AI isn’t new, but the big selling point here is that you can make an app completely for yourself.
Also: I used a free, open-source AI tool to build a working app – in two days
My wife had surgery recently, and part of her recovery involves an array of specifically timed medicines, supplements, and liquids. She downloaded a simple tracker app to stay on top of things, but the app was loaded with ads to the point it was too frustrating to use. A monthly subscription was offered to nix the ads, but she didn’t want to pay for an app that would only be used for a few months. Searching for similar apps yielded similar results.
With Google’s new system, it seems like it would be simple to make a custom app that avoids both the ads and the fees. And even better, you can tailor this app specifically to what you need. Perhaps the best part about this system is that an app you make doesn’t have to be commercially viable, and it doesn’t even have to be an app that anyone else needs. It just has to work for you.