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I'd like to start developing for iPhone or Android in my spare time, as a chance to learn something new but also hoping make some extra income.
I'm not sure which is the best development for me to start developing on. I own an iPhone, but I don't have a Mac (which I would need to use the SDK), plus with the iPhone I believe there's an annual charge to develop for it.
As far as I understand Android, the SDK is free and can be used on Windows.
Professionally I develop using .net and C#, which sounds more similar to the Java based Android enviroment.
Another negative I perceive against iPhone is it has a much more crowded App Store, I would think apps get better exposure on Android?
Both can be good/bad for various reasons.
iPhone - good
Great SDK & get to use Xcode which rocks
Well documented online (many tutorials)
Large deployed base of devices
Well established app store
Get to learn Objective (I find it a fun language)
Most people tend to upgrade their iPhone OS so you can get away with only developing for the latest and greatest
iPhone - bad
Crowded app store, very hard to break through (the "gold mine" is a myth)
App Store apps need to be approved by Apple, with some often rejected for dubious reasons
Have to buy a Mac (not necessarily a bad thing)
Have to learn Objective C (can be a hassle)
Have to pay $99/year to publish apps
Can only multitask on iPhone 4.0+. Hardware restrictions will mean many devices will not be able to use this however
Android - good
No restrictions on apps that you can develop/publish
Wide deployment of devices and growing - set to overtake iPhone soon
Can multitask on Android
Get to code in Java which is widely known
Some of the SDK tools integration with Eclipse is nice (although still needs a bit more work)
Only have to pay $25 to publish apps (one off fee)
Can develop on any platform (Mac/Windows/Linux)
Great Android devices coming out this year - platform could really take off.
Nice XML way of laying out views. While not as flash-looking as the iPhone Interface Builder, it is very powerful.
Get to work in Eclipse (which some people think rocks)
Android - bad
Have to support wide variety of screen sizes and devices
Many people still using old versions of Android OS (1.5) so you'll probably have to support those if you want to reach that market
SDK is not as polished as iPhone SDK
Android Market is not as popular as iPhone App Store - hit apps will not make as much $$$
All in all, starting with whichever is fine in my opinion, especially as now Android is gaining ground. Given your background I'd say you should go for Android.
In my honest opinion - I see the recent changes in iPhone SDK a kick in the teeth. I'm an Adobe person and you would assume, an infinite number of developers begin building applications in CS5 would be great for you App Store? Apparently Apple do not agree.
However - if your looking for exposure, getting an App into the App Store will yield more results if you build a quality app. As the Android store hasn't got a footing yet (if they'll ever be one), all marketing is on your own head.
I recently defunct Apple as they force us developers to 'be them' and I don't agree with their ethos.
That said, having programmed for both, The Android is slightly tricker to get installed and took a very long time to sort itself out. Although the instructions are very good and the examples are well defined.
If you've got a mac, installing the iPhone SDK is a sinch and you ready to build apps. It does cost £50 for the developer connection and yes android is free. [Correction - this may cost a one of fee of $25]
If you are building an iPhone app thats heading for the wild, you will need the connection (this can take up to 3 weeks in my experience) so you can test it on your iPhone.
And you'll definitely need to purchase a Mac.
--
With Android, its java, and with the newest rendition, a very good API to work with. As an additional bonus its build upon Eclipse, so it'll take you seconds to understand whats going on.
--
As a final thought - being an Actionscript/JS developer, the transition to Java was a logical and simple step and (please don't shoot me if you don't agree) Objective C is a train wreck of two different language styles. I found it very very difficult.
but don't just take my word for it, definitely try them both, as I see Android emerging market just an ice berg right now, but Apples is established.
Two disadvantages of iPhone/iPad apps ecosystem are:
Apple test & accept apps before puts them into AppStore (this take time and acceptance depends on Apple current policy) -- Google seem not to care about that so much.
AppStore it's the only official place for iPhone apps -- on Android you can install apps from unsafe source (i.e. website or email attachment) -- so you can provide and charge for app in various ways.
You say you want to (a) learn something new and (b) make some extra income.
As far as (a) goes, your barriers to entry with Android are probably lower. You can develop on Windows, Linux, or Mac; the sdk is free, and there are no charges. Android development is usually done in Java, which is not that different to the c# you already know. So, I'd say get Reto Maier's book and give Android a try. At some point you'll need an Android phone, but you can get some way using the emulator. You won't have to buy a mac or pay for a developer licence.
Once you're familiar with developing for a mobile platform you'll have a better idea of what it takes to build apps that other people will want to use, and maybe even pay for. At that point you can evaluate the platforms from the point-of-view of (b) and decide which one to pursue. If you end-up buying a mac and paying for a development licence then at least you'll be making an informed decision. But get some experience first.
Like you, I'm a c# dev. I've done some Android development for my own amusement, and (for what its worth) my personal opinion is that its a superior platform in comparison to the iphone because it is more open (technologically and commercially). I believe Android will fairly soon either achieve partity with, or even overtake, the iphone.
Try Android, get some mobile experience, then decide.
MonoDroid for Android is in beta, which means you'll be able to write Android apps with C#. You can sign up for the beta here.
iPhones are getting more and more restrictive. Android is opening up. Android is also shipping more phones than iPhone. You decide.
take a look at this book , it's a good reference to decide the 3th way... HTML, javascript & CSS for iPhone and Android at same time, based on webkit, using jQTouch and
PhoneGap . You can see on the first chapter the pros and cons.
I would suggest getting your hands on the latest iPhone SDK and a Mac from a friend before taking the plunge unless the $600 minimum investment for a macmini(what I did in my case) doesn't bother you.
You could try installing GNUstep for Windows and messing with Objective-C without buying a Mac to check out the language but it's not the same without XCode and Interface Builder,SDK,etc.
The reason I say this is because I'm currently taking an iPhone class and just learning Objective-C is a lot larger learning curve than I thought it would be and eating up a lot more of my time than I cared for.
Unlike C# or Java you have to manually keep track of memory management which is really annoying and a hassle not to mention Cocoa Touch, which is sort of like .Net or Java classes for Objective-C; another big learning curve! Bottom line neglecting the fact that it is a mix of SmallTalk and C and looks horrible if you can get over that it is still hard and easy to crash your program.
Forget to hook up your outlooks correctly in Inteface Builder?
CRASH!
Forget to use an # for an NSSTring due to the loose type checking?
CRASH!
I'm just saying that you'd probably be more productive and actually get applications completed in your spare time going the Android more familiar Java language route vs the Apple route. Also, I'm not sure how big Android is on the whole MVC concept, but it's everywhere in the iPhone SDK since Cocoa uses the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern throughout.
On the other hand, if you like a challenge or learning the Apple route is the way to go and if you are good you app will sell and you will make money. Like I said there is a ton to learn with the iPhone before you can even start thinking of selling the next killer app LOL.
p.s. Oh and unless you want to test something on actual hardware that doesn't work in the iPhone/iPad simulator or actually upload an app to the store you don't need to pay the $99 fee to develop.
If you're a C# developer, and you're looking to begin iOS development, then you owe it to yourself to read Josh Smith's iOS Programming for .NET Developers.
It's exactly what you're looking for.
Related
I have developed an app for the Android and it's working well, finally, and thanks to all the help from StackOverflow!!
Now I am being asked to make it work on the iPhone. I looked at iPhone a while ago but not recently.
What does everyone think? Should I take the time to learn Objective C and iPhone and port the app or forget it?
Are there any books that cross-reference functions so that you can look up how to do something in iPhone that you already have on Android?
From my experience in school, if you have already been able to create a working smartphone app in at least one mobile OS such as android, it wont take long before you can understand objective C and cocoa framework stuff. The only problem with that is you may probably need an apple developer license to use XCode.
So, I would say go for it since you also get paid, and also here is a link to iphone development guide for android developers : http://integratingstuff.com/2011/02/27/starting-iphone-development-as-an-android-developer/
Probably, it's better to get a partner who develop to iOS than doing it yourself.
Focus on a platform and let your products run to all users.
Unless you are using a framework that supports both iOS and Android (something like the Corona SDK) you won't have much actual code that will transfer over. Ideas, algorithms, logic, graphics, designs, etc will all transfer over just fine. Those are the hardest parts (IMO) of software dev.
Objective C (the language iOS apps are written in) is not that hard of a language to learn if you already know C-based languages (like Java). There are a few concepts that are different, but for the most part, it's not that bad. The biggest challenge for developing on iOS is buying a Mac. You can program for Android on Windows or Linux boxes, but iOS apps can only be developed on an Apple. Unless there is something that has happened in the Hacintosh arena that allows for iOS development on other platforms, you're stuck buying new hardware. BUT if you already have a Mac, download XCode and go to town!
Like Haphazard said, if there is enough money in it to make it worth your time, do it.
If you are getting paid, go for it! (Also, it could be a great learning experience.)
When I had to make the same decision, I considered the following criteria:
how much money is in the app on the other platform ?
how many times will this happen in the future, or is this going to be the only app? (how big is the benefit of learning the other platform for the future)
how much insider know-how is in the app that one is willing to reveal to another programmer porting this app (in my case I do mostly device handling apps, which is not really all that common)
what is the opportunity cost of spending time on porting an app instead of developing another profitable on the initial platform
If you have any possibility, you may look into similar apps and see how they are doing on the two platforms...
Good luck, whatever you are going to do...
I just learned about this and have not tested it yet, but one thing that you could do depending on the app you have you could take a look at PhoneGap. It looks pretty promising, though it may not work for your case with your initial application already made. But in the future this could help.
Unfortunately you will either have to re-write the app from scratch for iOS, or hand over the job to an experienced iOS developer. You can fairly easily port over the logic and computations in your app from Java to Objective C, but the user interface is the area where you cannot really re-use anything (except maybe icons), and the user interface tends to be a large portion of most apps.
As an Android developer who has ported several of my apps to iOS, I can say that this transition is a hard one. Firstly, you need to buy an iPhone and a Mac (if you don't already have these), since you cannot develop apps for iOS without the Apple hardware. Secondly, you need to learn how to use XCode and Objective C or Swift. And thirdly, since XCode ONLY allows creating the user interface graphically (as opposed to Android which lets you hand-edit the XML), there are many hidden things which can cause you to come unstuck. (UPDATE: Using the new SwiftUI approach to user interface design really helps with this last point, and in my opinion makes the transition from Android to iOS easier).
Finally the Apple and XCode environments seem rather alien to someone who is used to Windows and Android Studio. There are things like the Home and End keys having completely different behaviors to Windows which is frustrating. Also you have to use a combination of key shortcuts and mouse movements to hook up user interface elements to your code. Also, there are big annoyances such as the pop-up keyboard on iOS not pushing the content out of the way automatically like it does with Android. This is probably because Android is an OS designed for multiple screen sizes, whereas iOS is design for a limited number of screen configurations, but it makes iOS feel inferior and harder to work with from a developers point of view. (UPDATE: Using a ScrollView in SwiftUI solves the keyboard obscuring problem).
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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.
I've been developing applications for a long time now, but now I want to jump into Phone applications development. There are four main candidates:
Nokia's Symbian
Apple's iPhone
Google's Android
Microsoft Windows Mobile Phone
Can anyone suggest one, considering documentation, market, samples and availabilty of emulators, I'm not a millionaire so I can't buy it unless I know it would mean profits!
I don't have much preferences as for languages, but to stay within C# would be nice, however I've been thru Assembler for a long time, so it's hard to scare me :)
There are many factors to consider such as where the biggest market is, and so on. But ignoring those factors and thinking just about technical and money issues, the clear answer is start with Android.
The Android SDK is totally free. The iPhone dev tools need a Mac, so if you're not a Mac user, you need to buy a Mac. If you're not a Mac user, then it's probably a safe bet that you don't already know Objective C, which you'll need for iPhone. You don't even need a phone, there is an emulator that works wonderfully. It's very rare that I've made something that works in the emulator but doesn't work or works differently on a real phone. So the emulator is quite excellent.
Android programming is Java, and is very similar to C#.
Android development is much more approachable and easy for development (for getting started at least) than Objective C and iPhone.
There are many online resources available, but the book "Hello, Android" is actually very good. It's dated, though, goes back to version 1.5 of the SDK and we're at 2.2 today, but the fundamentals for getting started are pretty much the same.
You may decide to go another way, but in a handful of hours you can be writing your first Hello World program on Android free of charge. Even if you decide to start on another platform, you can hardly go wrong by giving Android a shot first.
Another thing that's worth noting is that Android is way easier to sell and distribute your apps than iPhone, making it a better place to start. There is no app approval process with the Android marketplace, so you can have your app posted for sure without wondering whether the powers that be will approve your first app for sale or to give away.
It bears mentioning that if you go the Microsoft route, your C# experience will transfer almost completely, and you'll be amazed at how close the compact SDK is to writing plain Windows apps. (At least, it was in 2007, the last time I wrote a Microsoft phone app.) But forget I brought this up-- if you want to be a serious phone developer for consumers, I recommend you forget about Microsoft at least for now.
If your plan is to create and market Paid apps, versus just free ones, don't forget to also consider and evaluate potential revenues and existing competition, instead of just your development cost of entry.
My local, and not necessarily statistically significant, sample shows a larger number of iPhone developers making more money than Android developers. The amount of money to be made, if you produce an app just near the top 10% of apps in many categories, may be well over enough to amortize the higher initial costs of a development system, certificates and testing with iOS devices.
However, for iPhone development, you may have to create a stand-out app, as many app niches in the App store are already filled with several dozens of apps. The absolute number of potential competing apps in the Android store is far lower in many areas. You will need to evaluate the competition in your area of expertise or interest.
First, you forgot RIM (Blackberry's OS). You will find this graph usefull to analyzie your audience (I think the graph is for the USA only): Source of the image
Microsoft Phone 7 will soon reach the market with new devices so it is hard to tell what market share they will take. Their IDE for Windows Phone 7 is free and it supports C#.
Can't say much about the other OSs other than the fact that iOS has the most extensive store and fanatic fans that are willing to buy those apps- but that info is only from what I read on the net and see from friends around me.
You may find the beginning-phone-applications-development question helpful as well.
Windows Phone 7's API will be based on C#, but most of the other stuff about it is still speculation.
Android has the lowest cost of entry, essentially free - and will use Java (which is very similar to C#).
The iPhone has a higher cost of entry - you need to own a Mac (or somewhat less legally, a hacked together OSX install). Plus once you've devloped your app it costs $99 per year to become a registered developer, allowing you to put the app on actual phones, and sell through the App Store. You'll also need to learn Objective-C, which uses a syntax which is a little different to C# and Java.
On the flip side to this, the iPhone tools are very good, and the market is huge, there are also some good online free courses (including the videos of the Stanford course available on iTunes).
Don't know much about the Nokia toolset, and I wouldn't start developing for old-school Windows Mobile now - it's a dead-end.
Some thoughts:
If you have a mac then the choice is certainly the iPhone since all the development tools are free.
AFAIK the Android SDK is an Eclipse extension and can run on pretty much any environment, and is also free.
Mirosoft charges for its IDE, and probably has the smallest audience.
I am pretty sure you will find more community support for iPhone or Android development too.
There are also cross platform options, such as PhoneGap, which may be worth your consideration.
With all technical considerations being roughly equivelant, the most "profitable" platform would have to be the one with the largest untapped consumer base for the particular app(s) you intend to develop.
Two factors come into play which you can assess
Size and growth potential of the market. There are plenty of charts and opinion articles around on this to allow you to make an assessment. If you can't find them, just drop those 4 topics you listed into google alerts and watch the incoming articles to your mailbox for a while.
Saturation of the app marketplace, in particular in the markets your app addresses. Your own market research would be best at identifying this.
The only other consideration which may apply to specific types of apps would be if there is a fundamental feature your app requires of the platform, and whether respective platforms support it. For example you won't get far making a flash based player on iPhone.
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A recent post by John Gruber notes that the following legalese:
3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs.
Has been revised as follows:
3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).
And makes the following observation:
My reading of this new language is that cross-compilers, such as the Flash-to-iPhone compiler in Adobe’s upcoming Flash Professional CS5 release, are prohibited. This also bans apps compiled using MonoTouch — a tool that compiles C# and .NET apps to the iPhone.
Does this in fact ban the use of Monotouch for the IPhone?
Update -
This changed recently. MonoTouch should no longer conflict with
the agreement. Any statements below are purely historical!
Yes, it seems pretty clear from their license agreement now that if the original application is written in C# then it would be violating the license:
...Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine...
They even hammer it in a little further:
Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited
Kind of a bummer, MonoTouch and the Flash CS5 -> iPhone converter are very cool.
Update:
Apple has dropped (almost) all technical requirements for languages and libraries for iOS, so MonoTouch is without a doubt a viable solution. See Apple's announcement.
Most people here simply want to take Apple's document by the word and say "yes, its banned". Well, here's my point of view: at this point, nobody really has any idea if MonoTouch is going to be banned or not, and I'll explain why:
The Apple agreement version 3 (not the latest, the one before) clearly states that its illegal to use any other frameworks to develop applications other than the ones provided by Apple:
3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including
without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise.
No interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run
by Apple's Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s). http://adcdownload.apple.com/iphone/iphone_sdk_3.2__final/iphone_sdk_agreement.pdf
Even though that's the case (and was actually the case since 2.x, apple doesn't have any problem accepting applications that do exactly that. For example, ALL EA games use Lua scripts, and lots and lots of people use external libraries that are not native to the iPhone. Even when the iPhone has those native APIs, Apple never had a problem accepting applications with different versions of it, like SQLite.
My point is that saying "YES, they'll be banned" right now is simply WAAY too early. The only clear thing at this point is that Apple could in fact use that to ban apps. Just like they accept Apps today that are against some of their rules, they'll probably continuing doing so.
There's also the fact that are hundreds (or probably a few thousands?) of apps in the store currently running Mono, and Apple will need to accept updates for those apps. Major apps with millions of sales were created using Mono (and Lua), and I doubt they would refund every single user.
Lastly, Enterprise applications are deployed to iPhones without Apple's approval, and that's a big market that MonoTouch is on (I myself develop enterprise apps). There's no way at this point that Apple could ban MonoTouch for those applications, and that will probably be enough to keep MonoTouch alive for a long time.
Update:
New changes to sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 have made MonoTouch (and all other cross compilers/languages/etc) perfectly acceptable on the iPhone. See Apple's announcement
Miguel doesn't seem to think so. See the tweet and Miguel's response. Lets not overreact here and say that Monotouch is dead, or stop developing with Monotouch until some clarifications have been made by all parties involved.
That said I would definitely start putting the heat on Apple for such draconian development policies. Things like this, and the nebulous process that is the approval policy of iphone/ipad/touch apps should strike fear into the hearts of developers. What's next, their license stating that the only Ad platform you are allowed to use is iAd? Not allowing the distribution of free apps without iAd? Slowly raising Apple's share of the revenue of app sales? As developers in a locked down eco-system, we are kind of frogs in a pot of hot water, and Apple is slowly turning up the heat. Now is the time to explore other mobile platforms, because as they get better, the main thing holding people to the Apple platform is lack of applications on other platforms.
I spent months of evenings working on ideas for a killer iPhone app in Objective C. My day job is C#. I downloaded MonoTouch C# when it became a viable alternative and have just spent 3 months converting my code to iPhone specific MonoTouch C#. Which stopped me going mad through switching from C#/Objective C.
What do I do now throw it all away and start again or give up!?!
I feel really sorry for the Mono guys. This is plain wrong. It is one thing to stop Adobe who haven't launched their product and have no customers and to stop MonoTouch who do and also have approved product in the AppStore.
Why would anyone want to build a business and invest in Apple when they will take it all away at a moments notice without being answerable or questionable?
Clearly developers and customers of Apple caring for them and their products is a one way street.
I hope Apple gets trounced for this ridiculous policy. Arrogance is not attractive and generally bad for business. This is one of the reasons I haven't started iPhone development.
Most hardware and OS providers are happy to have additional tools and audience to write to their platform. Apple is taking the stance that its (braindead) tools are the only game in town.
The "Big Brother" ad from 1984 is more and more relevant...
EDIT
The way it is written also seems to imply that if I wrote a .net to objective C/apple translator that the code isn't acceptable because the original code was not objective c. That is ludicrous (and unenforceable.)
Unity is also based on Mono and with that being a sizable commercial product I imagine that this is an issue which we've not heard the end of yet.
Banning all apps that are not written in Obj-C/C++ would, in theory ban all Unity games also, of which there are a large number already in the app store.
This question has also been asked over on the Unity Answers site, and their official answer is:
"We just heard about the iPhone OS4.0
and the new Terms-Of-Service. While we
believe we are fully compliant with
these we are right now doing all we
can to get this verified by Apple. As
soon as we know precisely, we will of
course share that info with everybody.
Please hang tight while we get this
sussed out."
Be interesting to see what they get told by Apple.
The thing is, surely saying that an app has to be written in a certain language is a bit of a misnomer, as once the app is compiled down, it's always a native binary regardless how it's been built. My guess is that all they can look for is some kind of signature in the binary to detect what tool it was built with. A flawed approach.
EDIT: There is an interesting overview of the situation on this blog: monotouch now dead in the water what does apples new iphone developer agreement mean
The new license agreement is explicitly clear about that. So YES, it will be banned.
Advice, if you want to really develop for iPhone, try XCode. If you are already familiar with Java or C# or yet better C++, then learning Objective-C wont be that hard.
iPhone/iPad is Apples new successful business, and they will do anything to keep this business growing, maybe they will not ban Monotouch apps now, but who knows there next move? So if you are really really interested in iPhone dev, instead of having nightmares that your work might be just rejected. Just switch to XCode, at least that will lower your app reject percentage. Hence, my advice.
I think something to strongly consider is Apple's motivation.
I agree with other sentiments posted online that Apple is trying to prevent commoditization of applications - that is to say, having more and more applications written using frameworks that generate applications that can run across multiple devices.
But that's not what Monotouch is. Monotouch is all about using the Apple frameworks to write applications - but through Mono, not Objective-C. So from that standpoint what Monotouch is doing is not something that should really bother Apple.
I still hold that developers are better off writing in the native language of the platform they are using, as things are just generally smoother when you don't introduce system that can have abstraction impedance mismatch - the Cocoa frameworks were all built to be used from Objective-C, and they make the most sense when you are used to the philosophy of Objective-C. But I do hope that Apple comes down on the side of allowing MonoTouch to be used.
All Apple is saying is that you must all now use 1980's languages to develop your competition beating state of the art Mobile Applications....
Makes perfect sense. Sounds like a winning strategy to me.
It also stops you from using any 3rd party libraries that you can't guarantee that have been developed in straight C, C++ or Objective C.
So basically it means that you can't buy in Games API's such as Unity.
Just adding my 2 cents. It seems that after reading this part: (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited) there is nothing to discuss. They have expressed them unambiguously. Not only they are banning MonoTouch and Unity3d, it seems they are also banning Titanium Framework. However, after reading this article, i found myself really confused.
I am not familiar with US laws, but is it legal? I mean, aren't they breaking some anti-monopoly laws?
Besides all of this, i can't understand their motivation. Not only will they partly lose a developers interest, they will also lose a developers respect, i think.
As of today, Section 3.3.1 of the Apple iOS Developer Program License has now been reverted to the old text:
3.3.1 Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner
prescribed by Apple and must not use
or call any private APIs.
Apple has released an official statement on the license changes.
This would indicate that it is now permissible to use MonoTouch.
One goal of the Mono team is porting Silverlight to the iPhone by mean of MonoTouch/Moonlight for cross platform development. That's a bit like porting Flash to the iPhone. There is also Monodroid on the way to help us porting applications and, you know, Apple runs amonk every time someone says "Android" :-) IMHO, if Apple is targeting Adobe with the new agreement, they are targeting Novel too. We are probably speculating and there's a NDA but many of us invested a lot of time on this platform so we need to make the situation clear. We cannot wait next summer to discuss this matter. For example, I've been asked by a friend to help his company to prototype a MonoTouch application for a customer. Does the new agreement only affect the App Store distribution? What about in-house distribution?
This google docs spreadsheet has a long list of apps that will be affected by the new agreement. Some noteable ones that have been #1 in the appstore for their category:
Monopoly
Lemonade Tycoon
Skee ball
The settlers
Zombieville
One of the funny inclusions is Toy Story.
oMany apps have been accepted within the last few days written with the help of monotouch and unity, whereas I also am using it as well as obj-c, since the announcement and change in the agreement, so GO FIGURE,...the good ol'WTF comes to mind. It is a bipolar piggybank it seems.
ALSO, the last Unity Game GiantMOTO, which is under HOT NEW GAMES - YESTERDAY, has on its splash screen onLoad in big letters, POWERED BY UNITY. So, all the conjecture, assumptions, etc. is really out the door. It might say all that in the new version, it is certainly NOT enforced. And montouch is the only development platf that FULLY exposes iPhone API and builds COMPLETELY into obj-c using XCode.
From what the license agreement says MonoTouch apps will clearly not be allowed in the AppStore.
The more interesting question is though, against which framework / apps will they enforce it? They will also have to write automated tests to check if the apps were written natively or not, because the people who approve the apps won't have the time / skills to do it for every single app. These apps won't put a sticker there 'Using MonoTouch / Flash'.
Short answer to all that blob in the agreement is YES.
Apple is basically shooting itself in the foot by limiting programs to a few languages:
C - which is not really suited for application development these days, due to it's low-level nature. It's mostly a systems programming language today.
C++ - which makes it harder to shoot your phone, but when it happens, it's with a bazooka. Apart from Qt, there aren't any complete application frameworks to use in C++ (and Qt doesn't support iPhone - yet).
Objective-C - which was invented by Apple and of course will be supported.
JavaScript running in WebKit - basically a web application.
They are deliberately limiting what tools you can use to develop for iPhone, which will almost certainly get them in serious trouble. I'm sure a good sized chunk of the community will just quit iPhone development and migrate to a different platform like Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android or Maemo, which are totally open - you are free to write your application in LOLCODE.
Apart from possibly making iPhone junk for developers, it also gives Adobe a nice kiss:
Apple deliberately blocks Flash from iPad, and now they are also blocking it from iPhone. The nummer is Adobe Flash's CS5 biggest feature is deploying Flash applications to iPhone.
tl;dr: Apple is basically shooting itself in the foot with this move.
It's now months after the flash debacle and it's pretty obvious Monotouch and Unity are doing just fine.
As per "Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited"
Monotouch compiles code down to a native binary, there is no "layer". They're referring to somethign like a .NET runtime, Java JVM or Flash runtime.
Mono applications would normally compile to bytecode which is and would require JIT (just in time) compilation to run them thus a .Net framework or Mono framework is required. However, in the case of iOS and Android, Mono application compile to native code. Therefore, in the eyes of Apple, there is no third layer, Apple will never ban Mono. So you can feel free to develop with MonoTouch and distribute your apps. To ensure you further, there are various of Mono applications (including games and applications) on the AppStore that have been around for a long time.
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Closed 11 years ago.
I have very little idea about mobile platforms, though I am interested to program for them.
Would you please compare J2ME VS Android VS iPhone VS Symbian VS Windows CE.
I would like to know:
which one is better
which one should I choose and why
if there is any VM technology to test the programs
is there any IDE, debugging facilities?
Personally, I would like to code for open source, but any suggestions are welcome. I have preliminary knowledge on Java. I would also like to know, if there is anything else that you can recommend.
There's several of these questions floating around on SO already... the most popular seems to be this one: what mobile platform should I start learning?
Quicky from the accepted answer over there (I edited a bit):
I think 3-4 platform have a future. But depends what platform do you like and how you like freedom in distribute your applications :)
Windows Mobile
C++ or .NET
free distribution, just like normal applications or through market
You need a Windows PC to develop
proprietary
Android
Java
Open Source
through Android Market ($25 one-time fees) or like normal applications
The platform is completely open source
iPhone
Objective-C or Java (Developing iPhone Applications using Java)
through iPhone Market ($99/year fees)
You need Mac (Mac OS) for development
proprietary
Java
J2ME or JavaFX
largely open source
My personal thoughts are: Symbian's dead; Windows Mobile will die, but take a long time; Android will become the standard in the next few years; iPhone will remain trendy in coming years, but NOT take be the biggest player; Pre/WebOS will maintain a niche market, but not be wildly sucessfull, Blackberry will decline, but still be around forever. I'd probably put my time/money into Android or iPhone at this point.
You can find everything about J2ME VS Android VS iPhone VS Symbian VS Windows CE in the below survey image:
Admittedly I'm biased, but points in favor of Symbian are:
Is open source
Has by far the largest marketshare (45% or so) of smartphones
Runs on cheaper hardware than Android and iPhone (means volumes will go up significantly faster)
Runs Python, Ruby, Java and Web Runtime Widgets
From Symbian^4 will have a complete Qt stack.
For maximum portability among smartphones, I recommend Javascript, HTML, CSS. It's the only way to run on certain systems you don't mention (such as Palm Pre and Google's ChromeOS), and (with suitable restraint in using advanced features, if you can) it's the one and only way to write your app ONCE and have it run on an incredible variety of platforms. Especially with some server-side support (unless your volumes are huge you can get that for free with Google's App Engine), it's quite a powerful and effective solution for many needs.
Otherwise, you need Objective C and Cocoa for iPhone (excellent technologies, really well supported by Apple esp. if you have a Mac, but won't help for other smartphones AND nothing else besides ObjC or JS will run on the iPhone), etc, etc.
I think iPhone is ruling the hardware and sotfware development,android is interesting but too new,symbiam is dying because Nokia,windows Will survive cause of money with bull€&€& but they will. iPhone is too restrictive and damn expensive but is thecoolest now.Finally i think that for the NeXT 2 years iPhone will reign.
Windows CE has tottaly caputed OS market for rugged devices, companys like motorola, intermec, Dolphin (Honeywell).
Plus Windows CE and Windows Mobile has an enterprise grade database platform.
When comes to spending money, companys buy $1000+ plus devices and build real applications on them.... I see Windows CE being around for a long time and the chart above only show smartphones and no other device, Android and CE can be on in TV's, running gaming system or anything eles.
A detailed market research about Android and iPhone here
and smart phone market share in first quarter of 2010:
(source: nielsen.com)
Take a look at PhoneGap and Appcelerator Titanium if you want to develop for multiple mobile platforms. They both allow you to write programs that run on both Android and iPhone, and PhoneGap also has BlackBerry support. PhoneGap programs are allowed on the Apple App Store, but I'm not sure about Appcelerator Titanium.
My response may be late, but here goes:
I've been exposed via work and academia to both the iPhone and Android platforms for the last year. I find two glaring flaws with both platforms that will limit, if not prohibit, viable entry into the biggest mobile market -- the business enterprise. Oddly enough, the flaws are opposite sides of the same issue: enterprise compatibility.
iPhone - Because Apple exerts ultimate control over what app makes it to the App Store, AND the app must be available to anyone once approved, IMO, iPhones will never become the defacto business mobile device. I cannot envision a business that would willingly expose it's source code to Apple's scrutiny. Nor would I want my "internal use only" enterprise app available for download by anyone in the world. I find that scenario laughable.
Android - OTOH, because Google (and now Oracle, too) exert no control whatsoever on app development, anyone who wants to, regardless of ability, can slap any old app on the App Market whether it works or not. I would not want my app lost in the confusing mix of slap-dash, teenage tinkering, malicious mongering developers. Would you?
However, the tie goes to Android because developers are not compelled to submit their apps to public access in order for them to be distributed.
Any other platform is either niche or passe'.
That's my take on the issue.
RE: Is there any IDE, debugging facilities?
For Android development the best option is to use MOTODEV Studio, based on Eclipse platform. Is an integrated development environment with Eclipse 3.5 and Android Development Tools (ADT) plus automatic download and configuration of the latest Android SDK. You can also test applications on an integrated Android emulator within it.
Java ME has the Java Verified Program and the Specs all come from the Java Community Process (JCP) far more advanced and vendor neutral than the others.
You can also take a look at iSpectrum . With this you can code in Java for iPhone, so you can reuse a lot of your code produced for Android and/or J2ME, for example.
Android would rule the market few years down the line, just because its an open source. No person would want to spend much on apps in future . Iphone till date survives because its trendy to use Iphone(as they say!) because of its UI and people are willing to spend on Iphone apps, so i must say its not far to see a mobile platform(Android) which is trendy, easy to use, free et al.