How to start mobile phone development

[Rakesh]

Hi guys,

I know next to nothing about creating IOS/Android apps except that
things change constantly so I wanted to get the group's advice on
something I am considering developing soon.

The requirements are initially quite modest:

1. Ability to look up ingredients and show related content.
2. Search for ingredients.
3. Be available off line.
4. Easy to develop across ISO and Android.

Not sure about the last one, do I have to create 2 projects and manage
them separately? I've heard there are third party applications where
you write once in Javascript(I think) and it cross compiles down to
both OS's.

Is it practical to do both as a newbie to mobile development? Should I
just concentrate on Android (since I know Java)?

Any advice appreciated!!

Thanks

Rakesh

[Steven Siebert]

This might be worth a look  http://phonegap.com/ 

Probably should check out the capabilities and limitations of the framework in regards to both your function and non-functional requirements you listed before going forward with design.

S

Rakesh

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[Cesar Gonzalez]

I agree with Steven, Phonegap is a good alternative if your strength is on JavaScript and HTML.  You must need to make some adjustments mainly in the display, but using phonegap + one or two javascript framework (jquery mobile, sencha mobile, etc...) would do the trick for u.

I use both approaches native and web/native depending on the features of the project, and can tell you this does works fine.

best,

[Casper Bang]

Have a look at MonoDroid and MonoTouch. It allows you to share the client backend code (also with the upcoming Windows 7 Mobile stuff) and write the UI stuff in one single language (C#, superset of Java). Also very interesting from my point of view, is parse.com with their unifying server backend stuff.

/Casper

1. Ability to look up ingredients and show related content.
2. Search for ingredients.
3. Be available off line.
4. Easy to develop across ISO and Android.

Not sure about the last one, do I have to create 2 projects and manage
them separately? I've heard there are third party applications where
you write once in Javascript(I think) and it cross compiles down to
both OS's.

Is it practical to do both as a newbie to mobile development? Should I
just concentrate on Android (since I know Java)?

Any advice appreciated!!

Thanks

Rakesh

[Joseph Ottinger]

Check out Apache Cordova, as well: it's integrated with JBoss' Aerogear (http://www.jboss.org/aerogear) project, and allows the targeting of multiple portable platforms.

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Joseph B. Ottinger
http://enigmastation.com

Ça en vaut la peine.

[phil swenson]

If one of your goals is building your resume, I wouldn't mess with
these 3 party frameworks that "wrap" mobile dev. Also, the results
aren't as nice and the idioms are different on each platform, so these
apps become "least common denominator" apps that look amateurish IMO.

Even when you wrap it, it's still a PITA to test and deploy. In the
case of iOS, you still need to compile in Xcode on a Mac and deal with
all the provisioning stuff.

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> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group.

[Robert Casto]

There are more considerations than a resume builder or making sure the application is a perfect fit for the platform. Sometimes you need speed to market and want to target both platforms, or you want something that works consistently so you can support it easily and document it for users easily. There is a lot of cost building 2 completely separate applications. I'm opting for the jQueryMobile/PhoneGap option and though it won't be a perfect fit, it will get me there and customers are not going to be very picky. If your application is the only choice they have, they might be happy to have it on their phone even though it is a different user experience than the other apps.

--
Robert Casto
www.robertcasto.com
www.sellerstoolbox.com

www.lakotaeastbands.org

[Rakesh]

It definitely is not about padding my CV!!!

From the answers, I can see its not easy to choose a path.

Keep the suggestions coming though.

Rakesh

[Sam Reid]

I recently did some prototyping with Flash/Flex/AIR, and it seemed like it worked well when I tested the same codebase on iOS and Android, and I was able to develop and test on all my devices (iOS and Android) from Windows.  And it provided a decent emulator for quick turnaround time.

Sam

[phil swenson]

I wouldn't want to invest time in learning at dead-end technology.
Flash/air/actionscript is on the way to oblivion IMO. Even Adobe
seems to know it as they are de-emphasizing flash in favor of HTML5.

[Cédric Beust ♔]

I've heard good things about phonegap in general but I would be very nervous writing my apps with it because Apple could once again change their mind about accepting applications that were not written natively with XCode.

-- 

Cédric

[phil swenson]

I don't know if it's faster to build 2 or use a framework like
PhoneGap. One thing about Android/iOS is there are thriving
communities providing support/libraries/tools. PhoneGap is a niche
(although I think it's Adobe's future in mobile apps, so maybe it
won't stay niche).

One things about mobile apps though, is if your app is simple enough
to fit into a 3rd party framework and work well then it's probably not
hard to implement in each platform if you know each well.

But it might be ok and it is a lot of work to learn 2 different frameworks.

[phil swenson]

I would be stunned if they did that. The reason they changed their
mind was all the push-back from developers.

2012/4/9 Cédric Beust ♔ <ced...@beust.com>:

[Robert Casto]

Agreed. I doubt they would flip flop again on it.

On the web framework side, you have Sencha and jQueryMobile. PhoneGap will work with either. With Sencha you get a lot of hand holding and you are back to coding most everything instead of doing markup.

I'm doing a mobile app using HTML5, CSS, and PhoneGap with a designer/developer. They are learning programming in college, but their design skills are top notch. I find that they can build the UI much faster than I. It lets me tackle the backed stuff supporting Ajax calls and I do the PhoneGap part on the phone. I like the separation of duties and it is easier to find someone to do the UI than it is PhoneGap and server side work. 

[Cédric Beust ♔]

They probably don't care at the moment because PhoneGap is marginal, but if they start seeing an increasing number of applications written with PhoneGap that look very similar on Android and iOS, I certainly wouldn't exclude the possibility of them excluding apps written with it. It doesn't have to be a complete reversal of their current stance, just banning a specific tool that is eroding the proprietary monopoly they absolutely want to maintain.

-- 

Cédric

[Robert Casto]

I see your point, but for a small developer it is a royal pain. I don't have time and money to develop 2 full applications. I would rather develop 1 application and have it run on both phones. This doubles my time and cost since I have to build and test on 2 platforms. My users don't really care about "iPhoneness" with the application. They want it to perform a certain task, and have it do that task really well. Documentation will get them past any ism's.

[Sam Reid]

A few more cross platform solutions:

http://www.madewithmarmalade.com/marmalade 

http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/

http://www.adobe.com/products/air.html (mentioned again for completeness in this message)

Two solutions that use Java to cross compile to Android and iOS (but have very large turnaround times and other significant drawbacks):

http://www.codenameone.com/

http://xmlvm.org/overview/

One that uses Haxe (I haven't tested it):

http://www.haxenme.org/

Some that are more geared toward games (not necessarily good for your application):

http://unity3d.com/

http://www.unrealengine.com/

[Ricky Clarkson]

And a pretty negative perspective on at least some of those:

http://java.dzone.com/articles/multi-platform-frameworks-0 

Still, nothing conceptually against the concept of a multi-platform framework that holds water.  They don't actually *have* to cater to the lowest common denominator, even though perhaps the current crop do just that.  A winner in this space could be very successful.

[Fabrizio Giudici]

On Wed, 11 Apr 2012 06:55:30 +0200, Ricky Clarkson
<ricky.c...@gmail.com> wrote:

> And a pretty negative perspective on at least some of those:
>
> http://java.dzone.com/articles/multi-platform-frameworks-0
>
> Still, nothing conceptually against the concept of a multi-platform
> framework that holds water. They don't actually *have* to cater to the
> lowest common denominator, even though perhaps the current crop do just
> that. A winner in this space could be very successful.

My thoughts are that such tools (I'm referring of the whole class of tools
that allow to code in a single way and then translate to the native stuff)
are ok for specific application domains. For instance, you want to do a
catalog of products, go for that (my experience is also that corporates
involved in this business develop their own tools). This approach fails
for generic stuff.

--
Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect, Project Manager
Tidalwave s.a.s. - "We make Java work. Everywhere."
fabrizio...@tidalwave.it
http://tidalwave.it - http://fabriziogiudici.it

[Josh Berry]

On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 12:55 AM, Ricky Clarkson
<ricky.c...@gmail.com> wrote:
> And a pretty negative perspective on at least some of those:
>
> http://java.dzone.com/articles/multi-platform-frameworks-0
>
> Still, nothing conceptually against the concept of a multi-platform
> framework that holds water.  They don't actually *have* to cater to the
> lowest common denominator, even though perhaps the current crop do just
> that.  A winner in this space could be very successful.

Of course, from the article:

"Sure, they can work in marginal use cases for the overly simplistic
or the feature weak engagements, but if you are trying to build real
mobile experiences that challenge the processing power, memory and
resolution capabilities of the best mobile devices and OS's on the
planet, then they simply SNAP."

How many applications that you download are actually that intensive?
Looking at the list of applications I have downloaded, I don't expect
many of them are "challenging the processing power, memory, or
resolution" capabilities of my device. Games, maybe, but I didn't
think these frameworks were for games. (And, amusingly, if you are
writing games you are probably using something like Unity, which is
specifically designed for this.)

This is akin to thinking you should shy away from some frameworks
because they don't scale as well as others. Obviously don't pick one
that cripples your ability to ever scale, but I question making that
priority number one.

[Adam Brons]

For the Record PhoneGap is Apache Cordova. When Adobe bought PhoneGap
they spun the PhoneGap product to Apache and gave it a new name so
there wouldn't being any legal issues with the old name.

I would definitely recommend PhoneGap / Cordova. It has a wide verity
of supported native operating systems including (recently Windows).

> Joseph B. Ottingerhttp://enigmastation.com

[Adam Brons]

To add to Mobile web frameworks -- If you happen to be using GWT
(don't throw anything at me) there's gwt-phonegap and mgwt for similar
JQueryMobile-like experiences using Java. We're a big GWT shop and
was able to leverage gwt-phonegap + PhoneGap to provider HTML5, iOS,
and Android Offerings.

On Apr 9, 8:32 pm, Robert Casto <casto.rob...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Agreed. I doubt they would flip flop again on it.
>
> On the web framework side, you have Sencha and jQueryMobile. PhoneGap will
> work with either. With Sencha you get a lot of hand holding and you are
> back to coding most everything instead of doing markup.
>
> I'm doing a mobile app using HTML5, CSS, and PhoneGap with a
> designer/developer. They are learning programming in college, but their
> design skills are top notch. I find that they can build the UI much faster
> than I. It lets me tackle the backed stuff supporting Ajax calls and I do
> the PhoneGap part on the phone. I like the separation of duties and it is
> easier to find someone to do the UI than it is PhoneGap and server side
> work.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 6:36 PM, phil swenson <phil.swen...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I would be stunned if they did that.  The reason they changed their
> > mind was all the push-back from developers.
>
> > 2012/4/9 Cédric Beust ♔ <ced...@beust.com>:
> > > I've heard good things about phonegap in general but I would be very
> > nervous
> > > writing my apps with it because Apple could once again change their mind
> > > about accepting applications that were not written natively with XCode.
>
> > > --
> > > Cédric
>

> > > On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 2:53 AM, Steven Siebert <smsi...@gmail.com>

> > wrote:
>
> > >> This might be worth a look  http://phonegap.com/
>
> > >> Probably should check out the capabilities and limitations of the
> > >> framework in regards to both your function and non-functional
> > requirements
> > >> you listed before going forward with design.
>
> > >> S
>

> > >> On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 5:48 AM, Rakesh <rakesh.mailgro...@gmail.com>