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.
Related
I'm about to work on developing an application on tablets (Android/iPad).
Our clients ask us to make it cross platform unless there is any reason to stick to one.
I've looked at some posts related to cross-platform iOS/Android development here, but I'm still not sure if I should just develop a native application on a specific platform or I should try to make it cross-platform.
I'm new to developing applications on mobile devices.
If you can provide any advice/experience, that would be great!
As far as I know, for technical reasons, the trade-offs are as follows:
Native applications are faster, but it's not easy to reuse the codes on other platforms.
Cross-platform solutions using web-based applications (e.g. PhoneGap) have slower performance, limited access to OS and hardware APIs, web-like user interface.
Cross-platform solutions like Appcelerator Titanium compile the codes to native codes but I'm not sure about its limitation (if I have to change it back to native application after developing for three months, I'll cry!) and it costs money.
Also, for time/effort needed to develop a native application or cross-platform application on tablets, in general, is it easier and more reliable to develop/maintain a native application than a cross-platform solution?
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance! :)
Personally I would stick with native apps. I'm working for a company that wants to create apps for multiple platforms as well and they have been looking for alternatives to native development, such as Titanium and PhoneGap. We've chosen for the following approach:
I've been hired to develop the iPhone app.
Some students for a University will probably work on the Android version, where the data framework / layer will look and work somewhat the same as my Objective-C code, e.g.:
-getFlightInfoWithId:forUserId: will become something like (void)getFlightInfo(flightId, userId) in Java.
The view and controller layers will probably differ in huge ways, mostly because Android and iOS devices have different GUI guidelines and capabilities (e.g. Android screen sizes can differ a lot, whereas on iOS there are only 2 real options).
For other smaller platforms we'll be offering a HTML5 app. To me native apps are always preferable to apps created with cross-platform toolsets as generally native apps should perform better, should have a better 'feeling' and might have some more capabilities, e.g. might be able to use some hardware features that are native to the platform and unavailable in a cross-platform toolset.
The bad news is that unless you're planning on writing a web, then you're going to have to write two versions.
The good news is that you can share the assets between them.
I guess you write could write large chunks of your iPad version in C, then compile it for Android via the NDK, but then there's all the UI stuff and so it's still gonna be two versions.
This question already has answers here:
Closed 11 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
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.
This question already has answers here:
Closed 12 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
Technology to write iPhone, BlackBerry and Android phone at the same time?
Edit - guys, we need one more vote to close this. This question is a dup (read the comments)
I've heard that Apple banned such tools. Ok, so Apple lifted their ban in September. Still, the question holds - is there a sane way to develop apps to these two platforms without writing nearly everything twice?
Is there something I'm missing, or is the current state of affairs really that every company that develops a cross-platform legally has to maintain two code bases?
Apple reversed their ban in early September after receiving some pressure from the FTC and EU. However, unless you plan on using a third-party tool such as Adobe Flash Pro CS5 (I believe you can create AIR apps that will run on Android this way, as well as the much publicized iOS functionality), you'll have to maintain two codebases anyway, as Android apps are written in Java and iOS apps in Objective-C, two vastly differently languages with vastly different APIs.
You can always use standard HTML5 technologies to make a pure web app. Apple has two tracks for apps: native apps through the App Store written in Objective-C, or web apps that have only the restrictions of the underlying HTML5 technologies.
If you don't like pure web apps you can even merge the two and make a custom app that displays heavily customized web-like content in an embedded browser view (UIWebKit on iOS). Android and iOS web browsers frameworks are from WebKit and very close in features/appearance/conformance.
Instead of starting from a viewpoint of "I can't do X on Apple's closed iOS" start with "Can I do this in any supported application technology, even if its web-based or a web app hybrid, available across all platforms?"
I've done some research on this recently and have found a few companies that can to do this for you.
Appcelerator Titanium Mobile. They make a product that allows you to write your code in Javascript. I've found that the business logic, like networking, files, etc are write once, but the UI has quite a bit of if(android) else \iphone logic to get right. Apps will look native.
FeedHenry. They are more of a HTML based solution, but have a broader support of devices. More than just iphone and android. The sdk is still pretty early, and work can only be done in their special ide that is web based.
Phonegap. A javascript/css/html based framework that targets the iPhone, Android, and the Blackberry.
There are plusses and minuses to all of the solutions. Depending on your app's complexity, it may be a good decision to pick a platform like those to develop on. Coding an app could be much faster if the features they support are right for your app. Right now, it seems that they are all in early release phases and don't support a full toolkit that a developer would be used to, like a debugger, full IDE support, etc. Also, many of them build to a lowest common feature set, so you may not get all of the new release features as they come out, you would have to wait for a particular version of the platform to be released in order to have them.
XMLVM: Android to iPhone
XMLVM can translate your Android code to Objective-C for iPhone. But as what I know you still need a Mac to compile the iPhone application.
Android has the NDK (native dev kit) to allow C and C++ code to be included in APKGs and called from Java via the JNI. Apple's toolchain will also deal with both; the code that will be different will be the platform interface code, mostly in Java on Android and ObjC on iOS.
This is only useful when the bulk of your application is in C or C++.
An alternate would be to go with MonoTouch and the upcoming MonoDroid, if everything works out you could basically code C# on all platforms including of course Win7 Mob.
It looks promising but haven't tried it myself yet.
In September, Apple lifted some of the restrictions in the iOS license that had made it difficult to do cross-platform development. See this press release. I'm not familiar with the details of the current license, but you can get a copy through their developer program.
Another possibility that would be the Rhodes framework, if you like MVC, ORM, and Ruby.
take a look at the System.getProperty() values with android the vendor shows as The Android Project. I haven't looked at the iPhone or the IPad since I don't have one but hopefully they have something changed for their's too. But this will only work with java that I know of.
Am looking into developing an iPhone native app using Titanium Developer
Since this is still in beta, I am wondering if there are any better options and/or if its a good idea using such software to develop native apps (which are not games; not graphic intensive)
If you don't want to wait, you can do what a lot of us did: develop apps in Cocoa Touch. It works perfectly well for games as well as non-graphic intensive apps.
The similar and more mature PhoneGap framework has been used in a number of iPhone apps and Apple only seems to object if the application autoupdates.
That being said, I wouldn't recommend using web frameworks unless your application is really simple--you will get a much better experience from a native application (on both Android and iPhone)
My company uses Titanium and it's working fine so far. It's also a pleasure to develop iPhone app using javascript and co. I'd recomend you give it a try, it's really simple to set up and start coding.
Some reading up: http://boldr.net/iphone-app-with-titanium-mobile/
I am interested in writing games for the iPhone and the Web. Ideally, there would be one language that I could write my games in and it would work on both platforms. I know this is not the case, so what is the best way to leverage code between iPhone apps (Objective-C/C++) and Flash SWFs (ActionScript)?
This maybe of some help
It uses the NME library which will allows code to mostly be written to the Flash 9 API and create the C++ for XCode to compile and run on the iPhone and Touch. This creates a path to port Flash games to iPhone/Touch.
Unfortunately, Flash and Objective-C are very, very different - and it's unlikely that a Flash player will be available for the iPhone in the near future. The native input methods used in Flash games - the keyboard and mouse - don't lend themselves well to the iPhone. While Apple could make Flash run on the iPhone, most Flash games would be totally unplayable (or feel very unnatural. They'd have to overlay a keyboard probably?). With the success of the App Store and native iPhone games, I think it's very unlikely you'll see Flash support anytime soon.
You might want to consider using a game development tool like Unity instead of Flash in the future. Unity allows you to create both 2D and 3D games, and you can program them in various .NET scripting languages. Once you've created the game, you can cross-compile it for web (their own plugin, not Flash), iPhone, or the desktop.
I know that doesn't help much since you have an existing codebase, but it might be something to consider for the future!
My company is developing a toolchain that allows compiling ActionScript3 to native code for mobile devices.
It now supports Windows Mobile and Symbian, and iPhone supported will be released in a couple of weeks.
Check it out at: http://developer.openplug.com/
BR
Guilhem
Adobe Alchemy looks promising. It is not released yet, but from their website:
Alchemy is a research project that allows users to compile C and C++ code that is targeted to run on the open source ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM2).
This would allow iPhone apps and Web apps to share non OS-dependent C/C++ code, which is a very exciting prospect.
One option would be building everything in unity. The engine facilitates building the same game project to any of the following platforms:
Webplayer
OS X
Windows
iPhone
Wii
Actually, the iPhone supports Flash technically (see Developer creates Flash for iPhone and Flash Installer Update #2). It is just Apple's crippleware restrictions that prevent installation.
Other than that, there's really not much you can do. Flash/ActionScript and Objective-C are radically different. You can have a central server store data, but that doesn't solve the duplicated logic.
If you're already willing to use ActionScript you could go all the way over to the dark side and switch to Javascript. That's the only common language supported by your clients (web and iPhone).
How comfortable you are with either development environment certainly plays a role here. If you are a die-hard Objective C and a super star Actionscript programmer then doing both shouldn't be much of a problem. It will be lots of work of course, but not a problem.
However, if you are neither or only skilled at Actionscript then I suggest you focus on Flash/Actionscript for the time being. Eventually Flash will be available on the iPhone anyway. When that happens you can already have a number of apps ready to be quickly ported to iPhone. Also keep in mind. There are more portable devices out there than just iPhone. Getting your apps running on other devices might be worth it in the mean time.
Just keep in mind when you're developing your apps now that at one point you also want to run these apps on the iPhone. So make 'm in such a way that they can be controlled with an iPhone as well.
Updating this old QA with new information. 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.