This morning's NYTimes heralded the arrival of Android's WYSIWYG, drag-and-drop app design tool for Android apps, dubbed the App Inventor. (Full disclosure: The author works for Whoop, a supplier of a WYSIWYG studio for designing and delivering apps in multiple OS environments.)

This shouldn't come as any surprise. After all, why wouldn't Android want to incent its fans, particularly those with little to no coding skills, to create new applications? What this points to is a tipping point in the app development business.

To date, app development has largely been the purview of coders. At Whoop, we took a different view that is of a mind with Android's App Inventor --- development of applications shouldn't be limited to developers. When businesses, not to mention your average Joe or Jane with a sparkle in their eye that is a new application, want to create an app, they should be able to design one rather than code one.

History is repeating. There is an analogue in Web design. Around the close of the '90's, there were dozens of Web development shops --- ranging in size from smaller boutiques to agencies with national and international presence. Then, almost as if timed with the .com bust, along came WYSIWYG design tools that not only created quality Web code, but allowed for the drag-and-drop design of sites as well such as DreamWeaver. DreamWeaver saw its successors in WordPress, Sharepoint, Joomla and dozens of other Web site management and CMS tools that allowed average users to create and maintain very sophisticated Web presence. While there are still many developers that specialize in certain categories, such as Flash, Objective C, and the like, the app design world has flattened thanks to the proliferation of these tools.

It appears we're witnessing a similar democratization of mobile app creation. Power to the people!