What is interesting is the ability to program them via a graphical drag and drop style visual programming language and that is something for people learning that will appeal strongly. As for the specs and abilities I shall leave that to those more vested in this microcontroller.
It has dragging and dropping some components of the program, but still requires code. It's not a visual programming language. Also, even the visual aspect of it is rather technical. To fully use this board, it seems one has to already be familiar with datasheets, C, and the concepts of components like PWM or protocols like I2C, and so on.
That said, this seems to be a great product for people who already have some experience with these concepts, and want an Arduino-like device that better suits them. I think I'll be buying this board. I'll sleep on it, though.
With PSoC Creator, you're not really programming via the editor GUI. You're actually configuring the internal hardware, which is compiled into routines and tables that are run through the chip at startup. Think of it more like an FPGA where you are hooking gates and blocks up to various pins. The software can also control and redirect these lines from inside running code, but having the GUI set things up for you is a lot easier than spending a week with the Technical Reference Manual...all 1000+ pages of it.
What is interesting is the ability to program them via a graphical drag and drop style visual programming language and that is something for people learning that will appeal strongly. As for the specs and abilities I shall leave that to those more vested in this microcontroller.