I've built plenty of Power Apps over the years, for two reasons. It's a solid low-to-no-code platform for learning how to build apps, and it lives inside the MS365 ecosystem — so you can wire an app straight into Active Directory, Outlook, calendars, and more, with a bit of help from Power Automate. A simple one takes a couple of hours. Because we don't use MS Fabric at my company (and I don't have Azure access), I've relied mostly on SharePoint lists on the backend — which is almost always the most tedious part of the job.
Building my iOS app (Thames Foot Tunnels, have a look) — which can now be done barely having to open Xcode — got me wondering whether the same was possible with Power Apps.
I tried a few approaches with Claude: the pac CLI / Microsoft Power Platform CLI, or exporting a blank app, having Claude modify the .msapp package, and re-uploading it. All hit blockers. Then today, a bit of digging turned up a Microsoft Learn page on a new skill that lets you co-author canvas apps with AI. I pointed Claude at it and, presto: a full World Cup Pick app, built in 20–30 minutes. And all of this from a Mac!
What a time to be building apps.