Yesterday, I built my first Android app. Then, I made two more — three in one afternoon. For one, I literally typed 148 words into my web browser and walked away. Ten minutes later, I had an entire new app on my actual Android phone. I did have to prep that phone by enabling a USB debugging mode and plugging it into my PC, but as advertised, Google's AI Studio did literally everything else for me.
I typed in words, I hit install, and voilà: an entire working program. I was nearly ready to agree with the early adopters: The personal software revolution is here, it's coming to your phone, there's a future where the average person can make complicated smart home gadget messes work even with no programming skills. Then, I tried actually using my three apps: a calorie counter and two games. They were kind of bad. And just when I started to enjoy iterating on them, trying to make them better, AI Studio informed me I'd reached my daily limit. I'd have to pay or wait for more.
How Google's AI Studio builds an Android app
On Tuesday, when Google showed off AI coding on a Doom-like game, I joked that I should make MOOD. It would be a Doom-like text adventure game: Modern Online Oratory Dungeon. That was all Google needed to start. When I typed "Make me a Doom-like text adventure game called MOOD, where MOOD stands for Modern Online Oratory Dungeon" into AI Studio, Gemini began typing additional ideas itself, attempting to autocomplete my thought. To start, it typed the phrase "It should feature procedural generation of levels and challenging, turn based combat."
I didn't want randomized levels that all feel different — I wanted a classic text adventure where you're exploring a curated place with a real map. But sure, turn-based combat, and maybe the game could auto-generate the map for me too? Then Gemini suggested it should have "secrets hidden in its rooms," and "a satisfying progression system," and more. I mostly nodded along. The final prompt was essentially a paragraph of directions, and then it was off to the races.
Unlike some other AI coding tools that make a plan and ask you if you want to proceed, Gemini sprints ahead automatically — though you can inspect the code if you want. One minute later, it already had five design mockups for me. Twenty minutes later, I pressed the "Install" button to transfer the game to a Pixel 9 phone.
The apps were fun — and deeply flawed
The writing was terrible, as expected. There were no demons in sight. The entire dungeon consists of just 11 rooms, and you can "win" just by spamming the attack button every single time. You can beat the game in a single minute if you try. Or at least you can now that Gemini helped me fix two showstopper bugs. One bug prevented a conversation from ending because a button was missing; Gemini fixed it instantly by generating a new version of the app that worked seamlessly.
My other apps may need more work. The calorie counter decided the best way to estimate calories in a given quantity of food was to ask the paid Gemini API, and I don't have a paid Gemini API key. When I told it to search for that information in other databases instead, I discovered it vastly understating the number of calories in various kinds of food. For example, it estimated a 16-ounce boba milk tea at just 190 calories, which is far too low. When I pointed out the error, Gemini realized it had matched "milk" instead of "boba milk tea" and used low-calorie 1% milk. It claimed it would match more reliably now, but my three-ounce serving of Taiwanese popcorn chicken still rang up at 140 calories, which is probably half of what it should be.
Last and least, I thought I'd better check if Google is still letting people make bad Nintendo knockoffs like my colleague did with Project Genie earlier this year, or whether it'd learned its lesson. With great shame, I present to you Super Peach Rescue. It is a terrible program that crashes as soon as its horrific, one-eyed-floating-alien-of-a-Princess-Peach dares to touch a single power-up block, every single time, and Gemini has not yet been able to figure out why. Also, it's impossible to clear the game's second pipe, as Peach simply can't jump that high. Still, Gemini did not hesitate to create "a working Super Mario game where I play Princess Peach and go rescue Mario, with all the trappings of a traditional Mario sidescrolling game," and it kind of did! It even suggested I might want to "Give Peach a variety of classic Mario power-ups like the Super Mushroom, Fire Flower, and Super Star" while I was at it, and labeled the controls "NES System" all by itself. I think I'll delete this one.
At least one of the two games I vibe coded was playable, right away, with no sweat from me — unless you count all the psychic damage I feel knowing how many game developers are out of work these days. To be clear, I'm glad the games I vibe coded are bad. While I might justify building a completely free personalized calorie counter because no one will do it for me, my game time is better spent supporting human beings.
Still, the process itself is worth examining. The ability to go from a vague idea to working software in under an hour is unprecedented. Google's AI Studio effectively eliminates the barrier of learning a programming language, an IDE, and the Android SDK. For simple apps, it performs admirably. For anything requiring nuance, reliable data, or polished gameplay, it falls short. The daily limit also feels like a gatekeeping mechanism: once you're hooked on iterating, you're prompted to pay. That upsell caught me off guard; I actually considered subscribing for a month to continue improving my calorie counter.
In the broader context of AI-assisted development, this tool represents a significant step forward. It democratizes app creation for non-programmers, much like website builders did for web development. However, the quality ceiling is still low. Sophisticated apps with complex logic, real-time data, or intricate user interfaces will still require human expertise. The threat to professional developers is perhaps overstated — at least for now. The apps produced by AI lack the refinement, testing, and security that commercial software demands.
What's more interesting is the potential for personal utility. A custom workout tracker, a simple inventory manager, a personalized meditation timer — these are all within reach. The author's colleague made a workout tracker they found good enough to actually use. That's the sweet spot: simple, personal, and non-critical. For those use cases, AI Studio is genuinely impressive.
In the end, my three apps were a mixed bag. One was playable, one was functional but inaccurate, and one was a crash-ridden mess. But I made them, each in less than an hour, with no coding experience. That's the real story. We're not at the point where anyone can build the next hit game or a reliable financial app. But we're at the point where a curious person can prototype an idea, test it on their own device, and decide whether to invest more time or money. That's a revolution — just not the one we might have imagined.
Source: The Verge News