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I started this project as my 20% when I joined Google over 10 years ago. I had somewhat accidentally been a Filemaker consultant for a while before that and sa
by spankalee 7y ago
I started this project as my 20% when I joined Google over 10 years ago.
I had somewhat accidentally been a Filemaker consultant for a while before that and saw how far non-programmers could get with a visual schema editor and GUI editor and some light scripting. They often made a mess, so I came into to fix things, but the fact that a small business owner could make a working custom inventory and invoicing tool with absolutely no training beyond the manual was incredible to me.
I'm really saddened by this shut down, for the continued reputation damage that's being done, because it's my baby (and you don't often get to create an entirely new public product at Google), and because I still believe that the world needs more and better tools that allow non- and casual programmers to build software to solve their own problems.
- benatkin 7y agoIs there at least an https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ style post somewhere? :(
- Edmond 7y agoWe're cooking up a different angle to App Maker type software. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2dYVret-Ck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2dYVret-Ck Check it out if you're still into this type of stuff:)...happy to answer questions.
- spankalee 7y agoThere are plenty of takes on this space now.
- jtwaleson 7y agoCool! Can you share who you (or the PMs involved) saw as the main competition for App Maker? Disclosure: I worked at a competitor that targets Enterprises, and we were a bit anxious when App Maker came out. Never saw much results in the market though.
- mritchie712 7y agoGoogle bought AppSheet (mentioned in the announcement). Also, Retool (YC alum).
- spankalee 7y agoAt the time I thought Microsoft LightSwitch would be the biggest competitor. Oops :)
- jtwaleson 7y agoOops indeed ;) Did you pay any attention to what Outsystems, Mendix, Appian, MS Power Apps etc were doing?
- narag 7y agoCould you shed some light on "the specific source code used for App Maker" that prevents from migrating?
- spankalee 7y agoMostly that the server scripts were run on Rhino and accessed APIs written in Java that would be difficult to port to a standard environment. The client scripts ran against a GWT-based runtime, and so had some API oddities they had to deal with too.
- yagurastation 7y agoEx-user myself, and although I can empathise with your disappointment, I frankly have to disagree with your small business owner parable. It was never easy as advertised. Novices even had trouble following the tutorials and making significant modifications to them. Basic tasks, as those mentioned, were easier accomplished with Google Sheets. And if they needed more they'd get someone professional to do Apps Script. Hence how I know of their pains.
- spankalee 7y agoI personally saw many Filemaker users build pretty impressive apps. App Maker was trying to be more powerful and more general, and so we opened up scripting a lot more than what you saw in Filemaker or MS Access, but it never achieved the full original vision or ease-of-use there. Scripting was a giant escape hatch for features that should have been built-into core, and the scripting features themselves didn't evolve enough. Managing scripts and using dependencies were extremely rudimentary.
- woofwoofwoof 7y agoI've been at Google in 2015-2016 and remember that this project was staffed mostly with contractors, so I am surprised they are shutting it down only now.
- neovive 7y agoCongratulations on such a cool project. I was hoping to test AppMaker with our functional users when it was first available on GSuite, but shortly after, the decision to remove support for Google Sheets as a data source proved to be a significant barrier. Our low-tech users enjoyed working with Sheets, but did not understand Cloud SQL. I never understood why that decision was made.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- squidi 7y agoMy IT Department even refused to enable Cloud SQL for App Maker to run. It killed off all hopes to use it
- mehh 7y agoSmart move by them, just because someone can build an app doesn't mean they should. The amount of VBA stuff kicking around in enterprises is a nightmare!
- omarhaneef 7y agoHow does AppSheet (https://www.appsheet.com https://www.appsheet.com) compare? Google bought it recently and, unless the timing is coincidental, perhaps it was as a replacement?
- mritchie712 7y agoyes, they mention it in the announcement as a replacement.
- gowld 7y agoWhat's going to replace AppSheet? Skate to where the puck is going.
- blinotz 7y agoCan’t a deal be done for google to give it to you instead of killing it?
- m-p-3 7y agoI wish that Google would sometime sell a product they deem not worth it to an outside business instead of just killing it with all the work done behind it.
- LadyCailin 7y agoOr open source it...
- mattyfo 7y agoWell I'll tell you what, you had me a little concerned when you launched. We're working on similar challenges over at Smartsheet. Please reach out if you're interested in staying in this space!
- wednesdaynext 7y agoI commend you for your idea and vision to propose App-Maker. It is a great low-code solution, offering very professional GUI components and integration with G-Suite; made all the more tragic by Google's short-sighted action to close App-Maker down. It is also why tens of thousands of people now wish they had never heard of AppMaker, myself included. As a FinTech company in the Financial Sector, we were big advocates of App-Maker and the Google cloud-services, recommending it to our clients. Not any more, not now, not ever. The reputational damage to Google will be long-lasting as the people affected, will not forget. If you have any sway in Google, try to offer us a life-line; not a spreadsheet-based / mobile app provider you acquired last week.
- czzarr 7y agoare you available for hire to work on a competitor product?