Though we can develop the i-phone application in the X-code
Why we need to use the Airplay-sdk?
can anybody differentiate between them?
I use Airplay SDK (see www.immortalcode.com) and it works well. Their code has been evolving, but it is pretty solid now. The big advantage for me is to be able to keep my source code in C++, and to be able to use a single code base for multiple platforms. I have built multiplatform games (iPhone, Android, bada, Windows) all from Visual Studio on Windows. The main caveat with Airplay SDK is that you may not get access to all the functionality you would normally have on a given platform. In particular, you probably won't get the native UI look and feel, and you may not have important options like using the ad provider of your choice. My understanding is that they've recently made strides in opening up the full range of native APIs on iPhone and Android, but still I think there will likely be problems when it comes to certain highly platform dependent stuff. Again, working with certain ad providers comes to mind as the main example.
You don't need to use the AirPlay SDK. You can write an iPhone app without it.
Airplay is a cross platform development solution allowing you to write applications for iOS, Android and other smart phone and tablet devices.
It differs from Xcode in that Xcode is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) with support for writing (mainly, but not only) Mac OS and iOS applications.
Airplay is a Software Development Kit (SDK). It is not in itself an IDE. You still need to use an IDE in order to write applications, and it appears that Airplay works with both Visual Studio on Windows and Xcode on Mac OS X.
It appears that Airplay uses C++ as it's main language, providing access to iOS APIs through a wrapper of some kind. It also appears to have its own UI library, meaning your app will look the same on all devices, but not the same as other apps written natively for each respective platform.
Airplay SDK is a C/C++ programming environment that supports multiple mobile platforms. It consists of several wrappers to native libraries for various mobile OSes and consoles ( Iphone, Android and Symbian amongst them ) and of a cross compiler ( gcc under the covers ) that integrates with Visual studio ( on Windows) and Xcode ( on Mac ). The wrappers provide an uniform programming interface among all supported operative systems. Basically you develop on your desktop and then you deploy on multiple platforms with a single click. The SDK is fair complete covering 3D and 2D graphics, a basic UI framework, sound and resource managment facilities for example. The main drawback is that multithread is not supported and that it may be problematic to use native features of a given OS. Also the GUI system doesn't provide out of the box the same elegance and look and feel one can found on the Iphone or Android. On Android, Iphone and Windows there is an extension mechaninms that allows one to link native libraries. I am using it to develop a 2d platform with Iphone and Android as the main targets. I found that the programming model proposed by Airplay suits a videogame very well but it may be inconvenient for GUI-heavy applications. However the framework is extremely solid and works well and I haven't found bugs so the code is well tested. If you are planning to develop a multi-platform game you should definitely give it a try. If you need to have more control on what happens under the covers and you would like to use native features I would also consider COCOS2D-X (http://www.cocos2d-x.org/) as an alternative.
The project is still immature and has a few bugs but I have tried it and I found it extremely promising. Moreover you have full source code: if you find a bug or need an extension you are free to provide your own solution.
Marmalade / AirPlay SDK will be providing access to native UI's in a forthcoming release. Check out their road map at http://www.madewithmarmalade.com/marmalade/releases-and-roadmap
Related
I want to start creating games for Android/IOS. I have already created 2D games using XNA and I want to publish them on other platforms even PCs but my highest priority is Mobile platforms. As I said I am familiar with XNA so I need a similar Engine for 2D. It would be great if I could write once and publish on many platforms. Please dont suggest Unity or Unreal. They are not that easy when it comes to 2D.
By similar I mean, for example, how easy to draw a sprite on the screen.
Note: I am working on Windows so no Mac suggestions please.
Regards,
You may also want to consider MonoGame ( https://github.com/mono/MonoGame/ ) as that is also an Open Source, OpenGL implementation of XNA that currently has support for iOS, Android, MacOS X, Windows and recently Linux. It is now all ES 2.0 on the mobile platforms. Our biggest change is that we now support Windows 8, and have a DirectX 11 backend thanks to SharpDX. We now also have initial PlayStation mobile support.
Actually ExEn, is a fork of MonoGame( originally called XNATouch ).
For a list of games on the AppStore or Android Market place and even NaLC, currently using MonoGame look here -
http://monogame.codeplex.com/
I hope this helps.
D.
You might want to keep up on the project called ExEn, which has already successfully ported some XNA samples and smaller games to iPhone and Android. It requires relatively little work to port and refactor to these platforms.
I suggest you check out AndEngine, its an open-source 2d open-gl based game engine that has a strong community. If you want something that you can make cross platform games with check out LibGDX It too is free, open source and based on openGl but it also allows for 3d games. It is also cross platform so a game you write for android can be compiled for, Windows, MacOS (see below), Linux. It also has a really strong community.
Regarding iOS and OSX games you really can't make them unless you buy a Mac. Apple doesn't distribute their SDK for use on any other platform but their own. That said you could maybe get something working under VMWare
Check out MOAI SDK. It's completely free and open-source. It is in beta right now but it is still pretty good. Crimson Pirates for iOS was developed with it.
Right now it supports iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux. Really good. I thought I liked Cocos2D-x, which is a C++ variant of Cocos2d-iphone supporting windows, iOS (not Mac), and Android but not truely supporting desktop kinda made me like MOAI more.
You can use C++ with MOAI or you can use Lua (they highly encourage using Lua). Being built in C++ is really great because you get access to a vast amount of libraries and you can easily bind them to Lua.
You should try games development with cocos2d.
Cocos2d is one of the best 2d engines for ios/Android I have come across.
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/
It is openGL based free engine.
Regards,
Sam
These might be useful to you. However, the first two aren't free, but they have editions for both iOS and Android.
iOS:
http://ios.xamarin.com/
Android:
http://android.xamarin.com/
I've never used either of them, but it's something I've been looking into a bit.
Apparently it lets you run C# and .NET code on both iOS and Android which is pretty cool considering how much easier drawing and things like that are in XNA compared to Open GL ES 2.0. Not to mention the fact that you'd be using C# instead of objective C.
There's also a free open source version sponsored by the same people who make the two I listed above. This one lets you run C# and .NET code on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page
I have been researching this topic intensively over the last few weeks.
I think the best solution for you is Marmalade, formerly known as Airplay SDK. It is actually more Windows-oriented than Mac (work in Visual Studio), although you still need a Mac for the final step of getting a signed app onto the store. It sounds like a very capable pure C++ product with iOS and Android as well as a bunch of other platforms, Personal license with splash screen $150 pa, single seat Professional $500 pa for all platforms. They have a 45 day trial license which I'm currently using.
I was tempted by MonoGame, could live with the $400 price tag for each platform (for the needed MonoTouch) but it is just way too buggy. The final straw was a combination of a bug causing it to crash all the samples on iOS5 and that keyboard input is broken on iOS.
Too be fair, I'm pretty sure that is all on the MonoGame side and was very impressed with how well MonoTouch worked and was looking forward to programming in c# with LINQ et al.
Since it is not obvious from the other answers, it should be noted to those who are unaware that the ExEn project and the MonoGame projects both build on the Monotouch platform from Xamarin (formerly from Novell) - which is a prerequisite for both for iOS games.
The Xamarin projects was mentioned in another answer as an alternative to Xna, but is really not. Monotouch and Mono for Android are a way to run C# and .NET on iPhone/iPad and Android.
Game development at least on the iPhone side, is typically done using OpenGL and OpenGL is also wrapped in Monotouch. The Xna implementations in Exen and MonoGame also uses OpenGL as the foundation as far as I know.
It should also be noted that Monotouch and Mono for Android are commercial products.
BTW: Exen also compiles to other platforms e.g. silverlight.
I have an application (actually a game) that I'm close to starting work on for iOS and the web, however I'd like to DRY up my code bases as much as possible so that I don't have to maintain so many aspects for platform portability. So essentially my two requirements are to run on iOS and the web, but I wouldn't mind it if I could also deploy it for Android as well.
What options exist?
If possible, which I am doubting at the moment, I have considered using Cappuccino (http://cappuccino.org/) to build out the app and then utilize NimbleKit for iOS compilation. Any ideas if this is possible?
What would work better if anything? Are there any frameworks in particular that would scale across platforms and mobile devices well + allow it to easily run on the web?
Also, Flash comes to mind, would that perhaps be best if developed properly such that it will compile over and not utilize non-compatible iOS functions?
The recently released monkey development framework deploys to both iOS and Flash:
http://www.monkeycoder.co.nz/
It's so new that I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but it has a great pedigree: the creator made Blitz3D and BlitzMax before, and those were great game development tools.
That said, I would strongly recommend a combo like Corona for iOS and Flash for web, so that you're using optimal tools for each platform.
Check out Unity 3D. Works for iOs, Android, Web, Mac, and Pc. Not free for the mobile platforms, but it's worth a try.
You should try Titanium (it's free). You can use javascript and HTML5 to build your game and it can be compiled for iOS and Android. Since you will be using web standards to code, your application can be deployed for the web with few (or no) modifications.
You can use this project as a start point.
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Write once deploy on Windows Mobile 6, Windows Phone 7, Android and iPhone?
Currently I have created a 2 simple apps for iphone and 1 for windows phone. When I go to promote these apps they usually....well do you have this for android or blackberry or whatever.
Do I have to rewrite my applications in every environment in order to have them compatible across all the operating systems out there? Is there tools that address this or do you guys simply recreate the app in eclipse, xcode, visual studio etc..?
Complex applications generally need to be created with the native environment.
Simple applications can be created with cross platform tools like Titanium and PhoneGap:
- http://www.appcelerator.com/
- http://www.phonegap.com/
#Fraggle (see comment)
I have quite some experience with Appcelerator Titanium. The choice for native v.s. cross-plafrom completely depends on the kind of application you need and your knowledge. General considerations:
Can the application be created with web technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript?
What language / environment do I know the best (native vs web technologies)?
How much time and money can I spend?
Do I really need cross-platform compatibility?
Most mobile phone applications only provide an easy interface for internet services like news updates, traffic info, social media and video. Those applications can be easily written with web technologies. Therefor most mobile applications can be written with tools like Titanium. The great thing about Titanium: Get the native experience on multiple devices while only maintaining one code-base. Cheap way of developing cross-platform applications.
Many developers use Titanium because they don't know the native language (objective-C / java), but they have extensive knowledge about web technologies. This way they can create pretty nice applications without learning new languages. Titanium is actually used for many non-cross-platform applications.
Complex graphics, device specific tools and complex interfaces still require the native environment.
Native applications will always perform better and use device specific features, but do you really need that degree of perfection? Yes, develop native applications for every device. No, simply create one cross-platform application.
Check this page to see what Titanium can do:
http://www.appcelerator.com/showcase/applications-showcase/
You may be able to use a third party tool like http://www.phonegap.com.
There are many options for cross-platform app development, but I would suggest Adobe AIR as it is also supported on the Blackberry Playbook by RIM. As far as I know, it's the only cross-platform runtime that is supported by a major platform owner.
I have also seen it do well on Android, and iOS support is also advertized.
Well there are definitely some supposed "write once, run everwhere" solutions out there. Here is one from RhoMobile which specializes in this space. But that is just what a quick Google search turned up. I haven't tried any of them.
I had an app that was developed for Android, and I ended up essentially re-writing it in Objective-C when I wanted to port it over to iPhone. It worked out pretty well and took less time than I thought (considering I hadn't done any iPhone programming prior). But now of course I have 2 code bases that I have to maintain and when I add features I'll have to do it for both the Android and iPhone version.
So having a single code base that lets me build apps for multiple platforms would be great. Do any of the tools out there work well? Not sure. Do they give you full control to make your app look and operate the way you want it, and make us of all the OS's features? Not sure.
Qt (now owned by Nokia) is another provider of a cross platform mobile framework
http://qt.nokia.com/
Even though iphone and android seem to be missing from their official Supported Platforms list I think there is an Android 2.3 release just around the corner. Qt for Iphone also seems to be in the works.
HTML5 may be one solution if the app you providing is simple enough. Google is doing it this way. Otherwise, even you have anything "cross-phone" it may still feels alien.
A friend of mine told me that some frameworks (PhoneGap and/or QuickConnect) can transform my HTML/JS/CSS code to an iOS App.
Personally, I hate this kind of frameworks because when you get a bug, it's very hard to debug. But, on the other hand, as i'm starting learning iOS programming, I find Objective-C hard to learn.
Did anyone tried these tools? What are their limits? What about performances?
Thank you,
Regards.
These frameworks are handy if you are coming from web development world. Since they allow you to develop using HTML/CSS/Js you'll be able to get going quite rapidly.
Even though they offer more interaction with the native capabilities of the device (contacts, camera, accelerometer, etc.) than pure web development (using Sencha Touch or jQuery Mobile for example) they are still more limited than a native application.
Webkit
Most of these solution are focused on devices using a WebKit based browser for the rendering. Which is used by many of the main mobile OS :
Symbian, iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Bada, etc.
Main exception being Windows Phone which uses Internet Explorer
Cross-platform
Their goal is to enable cross-platform development ever by wrapping your web development into a native app (PhoneGap, Titanium) or by "translating" to the appropriate language for the targeted device (RhoMobile Rhodes, MoSync).
iPhone specific
Aiming several platforms implies that some phone specific features might not be so easily supported. And the UI won't look as native since it's targeting different OS. So if you are only aiming iOS4 you could maybe try some of the more specific solutions such as:
iWebKit
Ansca Corona
Performances
For standard apps you should'nt notice much difference. But if you are planning to develop games some of these frameworks are probably not the best solution. Corona claims to be appropriate...
Caution
If you plan to develop a commercial application beware of Apple's policy.
Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine
Many applications using these tools/frameworks are still accepted but there is nothing official.
Edit: As stated by Rydell the policy has changed since September 9.
Do any libraries or other development resources exist that can help reduce the effort involved in porting applications between various mobile platforms? In particular, I am interested in supporting iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone 7. Some areas of concern include UI, client-server communication, and hardware support (e.g., camera, GPS, etc).
MonoTouch allows you to write iPhone apps using .NET (C#). In the near future, an Android version will also be available (MonoDroid)
As for Windows Mobile, I'd forget about that and concentrate on Windows Phone 7, which will use Silverlight for apps. And of course, Silverlight is .NET as well, so you can share all your business logic between Silverlight, MonoTouch (iPhone) and MonoDroid (Android)
There is actually a really good tool out there that allows you to write apps for android and iphone in javascrpit, HTML and CSS. Then the program will port the app for either iphone or android, building the objective C code (iphone) or java code (android) as it compiles. Later revisions of the program are said to include the ability to port to palm and blackberry as well. And the bonus... free and open-source!!
PhoneGap supports Android, Blackberry, and iPhone formally. They tweeted that it works on Windows Phone 7, but it's a bit early to feel certain of that, since that OS has not shipped yet. Has reasonable but far from complete hardware support.
Well it appears that iSpectrum seems to be what you're looking for.
You'll find a video on their website homepage ( http://www.flexycore.com/ ) which shows a 3D android game they ported in only 2 days!
All mobile platforms I've encountered so far have C89-compatible compilers, so that is what you want to use for the core application logic if you have high portability requirements.
The product I'm working on can currently be built and run on Android, iPhone, Symbian, Windows Mobile and some other proprietary platforms (Nintendo handhelds) and legacy platforms (PalmOS, OSE) as well as "real" machines (Linux and Solaris servers).
Of course the UI code has to be written specifically for each platform, but the core is built from the same source code for all targets.