iDev Meetup Review
Scott Rossi
notable entities in the mobile space: Appcelerator, Rhomobile, and Corona.
The topic was coping with all multiple OSes, devices and form factors, and
the challenge to decide which OS to build on. They also talked about using
the Web as the development platform option. This is of major interest to me
as developer who is trying to stay abreast of current and future
opportunities, and I thought it might be worth sharing some highlights.
All the presenters were different in their approaches/offerings, but the one
thing they agreed on was that even though iOS and Android are the two big
players out of about seven to take seriously right now, the sad fact is
there will probably be more in next year, not to mention the increasing
number of devices to contend with. So the rapid growth in the industry is a
something of a double-edged sword.
"Connected Devices" is the buzz-term de jour, ranging currently from tablets
to "smart TVs", and there is huge interest in this area, even though few
products have barely been released. Folks continue to mention connected
appliances, but this concept has been around for so long, I'm still not sure
if this is something people really need, or whether we need to be shown
what's possible.
One interesting point made by both Rhomobile and Appeclerator: few, if any,
of their developers want Web based IDEs. They both offer solutions for
folks want to work that way, but they both claim the vast majority of their
combined 85,000+ developers want to use their own local editors, regardless
of how spiffy the Web based offerings may be. They also claim, based on
their clientele, that consumers want mobile apps, not mobile Web. Apps can
be built around Web technologies, but they believe the market has
demonstrated that native apps are clearly more in demand than Web based
offerings. I wonder if Jerry and Sarah of Rodeo fame might take note here.
I personally know nothing about Ruby on Rails, but Rhomobile is apparently
heavily based on Ruby and/or Ruby-like behavior. My impression from Adam
Blum (CEO) was that's it's a somewhat arcane platform, relying heavily on
Terminal, but offering the freedom (complexity?) of many available
interconnected components. Doesn't seem like a good fit for a typical Rev
developer, but then again I'm not a Ruby guy.
It was also great to hear directly from an Appcelerator rep, Scott
Schwarzhoff. Appcelerator compiles a quarterly Mobile Developer Report that
he briefly reviewed, and I highly encourage browsing through it.
<http://assets.appcelerator.com.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/Appcelerator-IDC-Q4-Mo
bile-Developer-Report.pdf>
The report lists interests and trends they've polled from 2000+ of their
developers, showing what they believe to be most interesting and desirable
markets/technologies/trends. Interesting stuff to read about, even if the
report may be biased around their users.
Appcelerator has a clientele of some noteworthy names: Jay Leno/NBC,
Budwesier, Jaguar, Ebay, several big players. And their framework looks
very appealing in that 1) virtually all their controls are native, and 2)
they ready for customization if desired. What I think was most interesting
(and am wondering why few people seem to be aware of this) is that
apparently Appcelerator's basic-level Javascript framework is free. If I
understand their offering correctly, the only things *not* available with
the free offering are analytics and extensions (ie native C modules).
Their revenue is derived from training/instruction, and a huge portion of
their developers use their basic offering to produce apps for distribution
(they claim that Appcelerator was used to produce 5,500 apps in Apple's App
Store). Training is subscription based -- $199 for standard, $699 for
enterprise -- available on a monthly basis. They have no term requirements,
and the amount of help available in a month is (currently) not restricted.
IMO, this seems like a reasonable investment for someone coming from a Rev
background who may need just a month or 2 to get up to speed with basic
development process, and can then transition to public forums for additional
help.
Last in the evening was Corona, which is currently targeted at game
developers. This is not to say you can't make other apps with Corona, but
it's a bit like Rev's current iOS offering in there are no native controls.
However they have a physics engine and access to 500 APIs on iOS and Android
devices (they claim to have tested a few of their apps on a pre-release
Galaxy tab with no issues). Corona is based on the LUA scripting language,
which I find somewhat Rev-like. There is currently no IDE (requires a text
editor to write code), but they also claim to working on something to
address this.
Anyway, that's it for my rambling review. Hope this was of interest.
Regards,
Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, UX Design
Tereza Snyder
On Oct 26, 2010, at 7:44 PM, Scott Rossi wrote:
> I attended a meetup last night ...
Thanks for the report Scott.
The widespread ferment over mobile development reaches me even in my isolation here. The latest good news from RunRev leads me to hope I can jump in soon, in my independent capacity, while I paddle frenetically in my job where suddenly they’re totally committed to mobile web apps via html5 etc.
Vicarious meetups are almost as good as the real thing.
t
Chipp Walters
Mark Wieder
On Oct 26, 2010, at 7:44 PM, Scott Rossi wrote:
> Vicarious meetups are almost as good as the real thing.
rotfl. I should also repeat here what I posted to the use-list:
There's also going to be a Webcast with other announcements tomorrow
(Wednesday, October 27 at 8:00am Pacific, 11:00am Eastern, 5:00pm
CEST, Midnight Thursday JST).
http://www.appcelerator.com/october-27-2010/
--
-Mark Wieder
-ahsof...@gmail.com
Scott Rossi
deals on tools/frameworks, etc, please share!
Doh, I guess I should take my own advice: AnscaMobile is having a 1/2 off
deal on Corona through Nov 1. Using the promo code CORONA4YOU at checkout
will get you 50% off the $349 game-enabled (higher end) version.
<http://www.anscamobile.com/xgs/>
Regards,
Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, UX Design