Yes, for a specific class of app. No, for another. The honest answer depends entirely on what kind of app you actually mean.
Simple internal tools, a form that writes to a spreadsheet, a dashboard on one API, a basic CRUD app, can go from a plain-language description to something working in minutes. This is where current app builders genuinely deliver.
A production consumer app with real accounts, payment processing, and the security hardening real user data needs is a much harder target. A single prompt gets you a rough starting point, treating that as production-ready without real engineering added on top is where expectations usually go wrong.
Google folding app-building into Gemini reflects where the category is actually headed: iterative, conversational creation embedded in a tool you already use, not one-shot generation from a single prompt.
For a simple internal tool: yes, in minutes, see Google’s own announcement on folding app-building into Gemini for one example. For a real production application: treat the first prompt as a sketch, and budget real engineering time on top of it.
