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.
Related
I want to do the following:
1- mobile friendly Portal - accessed through different Mobile Phones.
2- A mobile Applications that does the same functionality of the portal to different Platforms:
iOS(iPhone,iPad), BlackberryOS(Blackberry mobiles and Playbooks),Android OS (Android mobiles and Tabs), WindowsOS, Symbian OS (Smartphones).
I am mainly a web Developer and an iOS programmer using Objective-C, and I have resources that can develop on android, blackberry and other platforms using native languages.
the Application mainly present data from internal database and deals with different types of web services, and write data to the file system of the device itself.
what is the best practice for the mobile applications, do each one alone with its native language, or using HTML,CSS,JS and produce them to all platforms using PhoneGap or something else???
Thanks a lot.
Also check this thread : best cross-mobile framework
With a javascript solution, your app will be available on stores but also directly on the web !
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.
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.
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.