im planning to develop a game for iphone and android. what programming language can i use to create a shared codebase between the two platform. i understand that there are some parts which are device specific.
The shared part should be in C or C++, since the new iPhone SDK agreement doesn't allow non-C languages (and Android allows C and C++ code through the Native Development Kit). The platform-specific parts should be in Objective-C for the iPhone and I'm guessing Java for Android (I haven't done Android programming).
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I want to build games in C on iphone (I know C# and Java right now, but i can learn C).
I know Android can run on Native Dalvik, can I easily transfer a game from iphone to Android for example..and to JTME.
I have books on android that explain about game development, but none of them actually talk about developing a game in C (or native dalvik)..
So the question is how easy it is to transfer a game written in C across platforms?
You can use Marmalade SDK take a look here Marmalade SDK
As far as I know, you can use C/C++ on both iPhone and Android for a game's "game" part, however the device related parts should be done with different code, might in Objective C on iPhone or Java on android.
You should try some open source game engine that supports both the platforms, you may check this SO question.
Hope that could be helpful
If you going to written games in basic 'C' language you can use it in android using NDK,
for reference check here,
http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/overview.html
http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/android/ndk-tutorial/
but i don`t know whether same code can be used for iphone.
The best approach, in my opinion, us to use C AND openGL code for the bulk of your work. C and opengl work on iphones, androids, and of course, macs and windows.
You will need some wrapper code for each platform. So objective-c for iphone, windows code for MS, and the android native toolkit wrapper code.
Once your app is started, all the "real" game coding in c and openGL will work on all the platforms
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
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.
Recently we are going to develop some products on mobile phone (specially for 3g). There are many platforms about mobile phones: iPhone OS, Symbian, Blackberry's. If I want to develop a product, should I use Java or write every program for the main platforms?
Particular one question for iPhone development: are there many Java programs on iPhone? Most iphone app I've seen are developed by their own xCode.
I need some guidance on how to do coding for mobiles correctly.
All these platforms are completely different beasts as in the old days. About symbian, (which I am most familiar with) you can use Qt for quality native applications. Native api is confusing so avoid it where possible. If your application is simple, you can even get away with python.
In short, use the language which you are most productive available for each platform. Their apis are wildly different anyway. Language choice doesn't matter as much as the choice of platforms you are supporting.
Java is not available for use on the iPhone; you can use Objective-C, C and C++ to develop iPhone applications.
There is currently no Java for iPhone, so you need to develop separately for iPhone in objective C.
Alternatively you can create application which runs in web browser, it'll be available on all platforms, but not every application is suitable for web.
Have you considered you using web technologies?
There are a couple of cross platform tool kits for iPhone and Android. They work in the same fashion as Adobe Air. Allowing you to make HTML/JS based web app and run it as native code in the browser.
Titanium Mobile (Android & iPhone) HTML/CSS/JS
Corona iPhone Only via Lua
Palm's Web OS is also based on web technologies.
Finally the old guard, Symbian Provides a Web Widgets system, that works in on all handsets with 9.2 fp 2 installed (n95,e72, n97 etc.) The api supports some hardware functionality.
The only one left out in the cold is Windows Mobile. There is some 3rd party support in the form of Web Widgets by torch mobile
It's currently limited to iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android (and possibly WinMo) but you may want to check out the open source project called PhoneGap. I think it is basically just a native wrapper around the built in web browser for each device, but it does expose some functionality not normally available in that environment such as geolocation, accelerometer, sound, etc.
Exists an universal phone developement language?
I mean, for example, php or java or whatever
Edit : We have to develop a few phone applicatons, and we are looking for the best reusable language in differents devices (Blackberry, iPhone, Motorola, etc)
Java is as close as you'll come, but it's no where near universal (iPhone doesn't support it!)
Since iPhone's language isn't used by anything else either, it's pretty much a given that you won't find a universal solution.
Rhodes by Rhomobile is a Ruby framework for building cross-platform phone applications. It allows you to build a single application that works on all major smartphones: iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android. (The only obvious omissions seem to be OpenMoko and PalmOS/webOS, but all the phones you listed are supported.)
The way Rhodes works, is that you write your application in Ruby and your UI in HTML. A Ruby implementation, the Rhodes framework itself, your application scripts and your HTML files then get packaged up into what looks to the phone's operating system like a single native application. Rhodes then runs a webserver inside of the phone and serves the application from there, using the phone's builtin web browser UI component and a JavaScript UI library for making the web app look like a native app. (E.g. iUI for the iPhone.)
There was a nice introduction to Rhodes (with live coding) by the Rhomobile CEO at the Mountain West RubyConf 2009, the video is available at the Confreaks website.
Java (more specifically J2ME) will work on most phones. Googles Android and Blackberry development involves Java too. On Symbian-phones you can develop in C and there is an interpreter for python. If you are aiming for the iPhone market you have to stick to Objective-C and the Cocoa Touch framework.
There is no universal language, nor universal runtime that is supported by all of the major platforms. Two major players are Java on J2ME, BlackBerry and Android devices and Objective-C on the iPhone.
You might want to check out Symbian phone OS, it is intended as a common OS originally a joint collaboration between Nokia, Motorla and Ericsson. see: www.symbian.org/index.php
HTML + Javascript + CSS
PhoneGap!
It is the only cross platform mobile framework that I know of. Has feature support for iPhone, Android and Blackberry
http://phonegap.com/
Well!!! Most of the phones support java. What are you trying to do? Learn a new language?
Java is probably the closest you're going to find.
Even if you can do it, what good does it do to write a mediocre application that doesn't really take full advantage of whatever device it is on?
Bite the bullet and choose to do great implementations on a selected subset of mobile platforms.