I want to learn some mobile stuff, and programming interesting things myself
on mobile phones, what is popular and easy-to-use mobile operating system?
This is extremely subjective.
Java developers will be more comfortable on the Blackberry, Android or J2ME platforms, while Windows developers will likely be more comfortable with Windows Mobile.
Personally, I find programming for the iPhone very enjoyable and easy. I found Objective-C easy to learn. The tools are also well made and the frameworks intuitive IMO.
I've also come to personally dislike coding for the Blackberry. Simple applications require too much code and designing interfaces is an enormous pain.
But as I said, this is very subjective. I'd recommend going through the Getting Started examples of the each of the platforms you have in mind and deciding after having some exposure to each.
Windows Mobile has fairly easy development with .NET Compact Framework.
WebOS (Palm Pre, etc.) has an easy to use HTML/Javascript like environment. Check out their 'Hello World!' example to see what I mean.
Android isn't bad if you're familiar with Java. (Same goes for Blackberry)
iPhone might be the most complex in my opinion because of the use of Objective-C (it's also probably the most robust). Check out their Programming Guide Introduction to get an idea about what I mean. You might want to check out MonoTouch which allows iPhone development in .NET.
.Net Compact Framework is pretty easy to work with. And works great on Windows Mobile devices.
Without to know which platform you are used to program on, it is not possible to give a correct answer. If you are used to program on Windows, and you are already using .NET framework, then it would be better for you to learn how to program on Windows Mobile; if you are already a Mac developer, then it is easier for you to learn how to create a program for iPhone OS (which is also used on the iPod); if you are a Java programmer, then you should be more comfortable with Android.
IMO, you start to program on a mobile platform that can be programmed using the same framework for the desktop applications because that would allow you to not learn two different frameworks
Related
I have to develop a mobile application that is available on Android and iOS.
I do not have any experience with native development for Android or iOS, so I decided to go with some of the existing platforms like PhoneGap, Titanium or Icenium (these platforms provide me with all necessary requirements).
I saw that Icenium requires an invitation code to go through the documentation.
What I want to ask: Has someone played with Icenium? Any recommendations about this cloud-based platform? What about performance?
I have been working with Icenium and I can say that it is fun so far. It is really just an IDE that allows you to use Cordova (PhoneGap) to build apps. There are two IDEs -- one that is browser based and one that is a Windows desktop app. The native desktop app is more featured and has a better User Experience. There is some poetic justice there, if you are looking for it :)
So far, it is certainly young. Support for things like PhoneGap plugins is non-existent so far. I also can't seem to get the app working on a real device, but these are beta bugs and I expect them to be smoothed out.
Although the cloud-based approach is nice because I don't have to worry about using multiple IDEs, you lose a lot of freedom for how you want to develop. For instance, I like using CoffeeScript and there is no support for building, compiling, creating new CS files, etc. Possibly in the future?
Since it is really just an IDE for developing Cordova (PhoneGap) apps, it isn't a different platform from Cordova. It just makes development a bit more streamlined.
I have to say that from my personal experience , Icenium is slow. They market it as being html5 apps that work like native apps and this is just not the case. You can make it look like a native app and you can develop it with the native ideology as it were, letting the user experience it as if it were native, but its so slow.
Its also really odd how a microsoft technology based company ( that is telerik ) has basically removed itself from the microsoft stack with icenium. I am not saying that is bad , microsoft itself needs to do more to attract developers to its platform. Its just really odd because most of the telerik clients use the mircosoft stack , including , very importantly visual studio. Everyone knows VS they have custom plugins that suit their development style and now we must learn and use a new IDE that is so far , in my opinion not even close to the standards of anything. The one primary advantage is that you can deploy to a device.
Adding Phonegap or any other mobile based framework can be done in anything. It also does not provide support for microsoft devices at all. Which removes completely the whole cross platform environment that it seems this was supposed to be created for.
If you are not developing for microsoft , i guess its fine , but i dont see any other advantage other then it can deploy to the device for testing. If you have clients that work on the MS stack .. i would not recommend this at all. Just fire up VS and develop as you have before and just include those libraries in your file system.
i wanna write a C program that runs on a mobile phone. Just for learning purpose. i think it's possible. but i dont know where to start with and the libraries that are available for it.
i have also planned to write a game that runs on a mobile phone.
help me to do it. thanks in advance.
I do not know a mobile platform where its SDK are reccomending using pure C anymore. Last that I knew of was the old Palm platform.
But you can write C/C++ with QT as GUI library for Maemo, MeeGo and possibly other Nokia devices. QT are object oriented, so its not procedural as you want.
I know of 1 platform where pure C is possible. That's the windows mobile version <6.5 using win32 api. But this is not a thing I personally recommend doing since C#.NET makes it easier to develop applications for that platform. I also think that pure C combined with XML/CSS using the WebOS PDK is possible but I might be wrong here.
If you have a wish to write for mobile devices using your knowledge in C then i would rather recommend to use languages like C++ and Objective-C where you also can write C and use C libraries.
A list of mobile devices and the programming languages used to develop applications for them:
Symbian - C/C++
iOS - Objective-C
Android - Java
Windows Mobile - C/C++/.NET
WebOS - C/C++
How about MoSync. It's OS-independent SDK. MoSync applications are written in the C and C++ programming languages.
Programming is almost same. Try downloading one of the SDKs and review the documents for any of the platforms you want.
1) iPhone
2) Android
3) Bada (This is Samsung's latest platform)
SDK comes with cross compilers , simulators and IDE to assist you.
Will add more to this.
Java-to-C compiler may work in J2ME case. You can try Clue: http://cluecc.sourceforge.net/
When developing with Mono for an app to be run on Windows and Mac OSX (and maybe Linux) which would you suggest, WinForms or GtkSharp for the GUI and why?
Specific examples and success/horror stories would be much appreciated.
Cross platform development is a nice idea, but to be completely honest I have never seen an application that looks really good outside of its native environment. That is why I think, that if you really want to offer good user experience you should use native toolkits on all platforms that you want to support.
Of course, if you just want a proof of concept, then WinForms on a Mac (or Linux) are alright but if you want an application that competes against other native solution then you really should consider writing a separate native frontend for each supported platform.
A good example how that was done is MindManager from Mindjet. Their Mac version is a full, from scratch rewrite of the interface. The result is an application that gives Mac users the experience that they learned to expect on their platform.
So, back to Mono. There are Cocoa bindings in Mono. Personally, I have never tried using them, but if you want to target Macs with your application, they are certainly worth a look. It would be really great if they could be regarded as a valid choice for UI development on a Mac.
When deciding whether or not to use a cross-platform architecture, gague your requirements of having a tight UI against agility toward change and development time. Using a platform-specific UI framework is (almost) always going to give you better looking and better performing results than you'll get from a cross-platform one.
GtkSharp requires X11 on Mac OS X. Mac users will find that off-putting. I haven't tried Winforms on OS X, but mono's Linux winforms support was pretty immature (buggy) and slow. I don't think there is a mature .net GUI toolkit for OS X at this point, at least nothing at the level of Swing or SWT.
What platform will most of the users of your app have? If most of the users will be Windows users, use Winforms, but if most of the users will be Linux users, use Gtk#. I wouldn't know which one works best on OSX.
Read this article also: http://www.mono-project.com/Gui_Toolkits
I am willing to develop a mobile application. I wish to have something working for android, windows mobile, symbian and blackberry.
Which is the best way to do that?
I had read here:
You could aim to wrap the sections of
the platform specific APIs (iPhone SDK
etc.) that you use with your own
interfaces. In doing so you are
effectively hiding the platform
specific libraries and making your
design and code easier to manage when
dealing with differences in the
platforms.
I was hoping there exists a framework that does this for me, but it doesn't exist or I didn't find any.
I feel that sort of things will make my code harder to maintain and perhaps it's better to have one version for each platform.
Anyone with experience in the field?
Another links of interest:
most-promising-mobile-platforms
long-term-potential-of-iphone-windows-mobile-development-platforms
Does Java not count (in various guises)
Java on Symbian
Java for Windows Mobile
Java on Blackberry
Android Java Virtual Machine
It should be simpler to manage API differences in a consistent language/runtime platform where capabilities can be assessed in-code ... and configurations of code made at build-time.
As much as I dislike Java, it is fairly ubiquitous. As for the iPhone ... apart from it being much hyped and locked down ... you can get Java to run on jail-broken phones ...
What happened to Apple's open and friendly appearance? The cynic-inside knows the answer ;)
You might want to look into PhoneGap (http://phonegap.com/). From their own description page:
PhoneGap is an open source development tool for building fast, easy mobile apps with JavaScript.
If you’re a web developer who wants to build mobile applications in HTML and JavaScript while still taking advantage of the core features in the iPhone, Android and Blackberry SDKs, PhoneGap is for you.
In addition to using JavaScript, it supports JavaScript acccess to native controls and features of the phones (GPS, accelerometers etc...).
There really isn't any magic bullet that I'm aware of. Even within just the Blackberry platform, there are tons of different devices with different capabilities, screen resolutions, etc. And that's just from one, single manufacturer; Symbian and Windows Mobile are likely even worse.
The answer is likely that you should focus on relatively new and consistent platforms (accordingly with very few and all pretty much similar devices), like Android and iPhone OS, if you really want to reduce your code forking and maximize your audience.
My advice will almost certainly change within a few years when there are nine different iPhone OS devices and two dozen Android platforms.
The first question to ask yourself is if you need a native application, if you do not then designing a mobile web site solution should give you the most cross compatibility, failing that I would make a iPhone and J2ME solution (the J2ME can then be ported for Android relatively easily) for the greatest coverage of users
Or investigate Movilizer. Supports iOS, Android, WinPhone, WinMobile, Desktop PCs, embedded devices, ... and many more. It uses a design once run anywhere approach.
http://www.movilizer.com
try out different cross platform dev tools,
Developing cross platform mobile application
I need to develop some programs for mobile devices but haven't decided the platform to build upon. I'm looking for Palm or Pocket PC devices that have Touch screen and Wi-Fi connection and are cheep because I'll need to buy several of them.
I don't really need camera, mp3 players, video players, pdf readers or anything else since the apps are going to be simple data collection to feed via wireless to a server database.
I'm proficient with C and C#. I could learn Java if I had to.
What devices do you recommend? Linux devices maybe?
PS: Changed the title because I don't want a flamewar between platforms. Please, don't answer with Windows Mobile sucks/rules. I'm looking for devices instead.
Thanks
Windows Mobile
It supports C#, and Visual Studio comes with the mobile SDK. So if you know C# you probably already have the tools you need. And in spite of the iPhone/iPodTouch buzz, the Windows Mobile deployment is still 10X greater.
In order of preference
Neo Freerunner
Maemo & the N800 (cheap)
Beagleboard
If you are comfortable with Visual Studio then programming for windows mobile is extremely easy. The SDK for mobile comes with emulators for all the latest and popular versions of windows mobile- and you can even debug on teh device itself using a USB cable.
On windows mobile you have a choice: Develop a .Net application or develop native (likely MFC based). Either one gives you a great development environment.
As far as iPhone development goes- you would need an apple computer to install and use iPhone SDK- and you can't run an iPhone app on your phone. You would have to go through the process of getting it registered with iTunes for you to install your own apps on your own phone!
When I first started playing with mobile development I had a few questions:
Can I develop using my favorite IDE- Visual Studio. Will it be as easy as developing a desktop app: yes.
Will I be able to access the internet from my application without 'unlocking' or in some other way enabling the phone that was not intended by the service provider? yes.
Will I be able to access device specific functionality such as GPS easily? Is there good support for doing so within the API? Yes.
You should probably target the Windows Mobile platform. The Palm platform is rather archaic and no longer widely used. The development environment is also rather spartan, while Microsoft has full IDEs available for Windows Mobile development. You might also consider the iPhone/iPod touch platform - I have a feeling the number of devices will multiply at an exponential rate and I've heard that developing applications is much easier due to the completeness of the system stack.
You should probably at least evaluate the Apple iPod Touch. It certainly meets your basic "touch screen + WiFi" spec, and your users presumably won't object to all the the other nice features that will come along for the ride.
I don't know what your cutoff for "cheap" is, but $299 for the base model seems pretty reasonable for a high-quality touch screen and WiFi in a pocketable device.
Windows Mobile and CE used to suck, really, really badly. These days however it's definitely passable and worth checking out, especially if you code C#.
Just remember that it is the baby brother of the full framework and has nowhere near enough toys and throws a lot of NotImplementedExceptions. :)
Blackberry publishes its SDK on its web site. Its apps run J2ME, so with some Java experience it shouldn't be too difficult to get started. They also give you an emulator. Disclaimer: I have no experience in writing Blackberry apps, but I looked into it once.
I would not recommend a PalmOS based handset. I have written code for PalmOS and it's about as painful as writing raw Win32 code in C. Since Palm has switched its high end handsets to Windows Mobile, PalmOS will just remain stagnant and only run on the slower, less capable hardware.
If I were to write a mobile app, I'd agree that Windows Mobile is worth checking out.
It all depends on the users who you are targeting at, If you are looking for a wide market then you should be fine with J2ME/Blackberry . However most of them lack the touchscreen and wifi features ( The HTC range of phones [WIFI/TouchScreen/Windows Mobile] have a JVM built with it),so it would work on most of the Windows devices also.
If you are making a more niche product, moving with the current buzz 'iphone' will be good . Windows Mobile is also worth checking out
The best option here would be the Neo Freerunner, with that device you can build a dedicated unit were every aspect is made especially for you're needs. The Freerunner is WiFi enabled, and has a touch interface. If you use the Qt SDK, a lot of the work is already done for you. It comes complete with emulator, as a Live linux cd. You can run in a WM, such as wmplayer. Everything is included.
I'm not gonna lie, it will take tweaking. But the final product would be really nice and intuitive.
Looking at Windows Mobile devices, your requirement of touchscreen pretty much sets your pricing at the higher end of the spectrum. You'll get those things you say you don't need just because of that.
Here's expansys's selection of touchscreens.
Mobdeal is a handy one too as that effectively filters all phones by features.
I've developed against the HTC TYTN 2, HTC Touch Diamond and randomly a PSION Teklogix Ikon
There's generally very little difference between these models, some manufacturers have SDKs that can help sometimes.
I think your cheapest option will probably be something like getting HTC TYTN 2s on ebay. They're pretty old now (hence cheap) but have Wifi, camera, touchscreen, qwerty keypad all the things you seem to be after.
you can target iPhone "touch" platform with Apple's iPhone SDK. the development environment requires a Mac, but you can get the entire IDE + tool chain + excellent debugging and profiling tools for free. And the free documentation is top notch.
As a registered iPhone developer, it is free (no cost) to target the simulator, which is sufficient for most learning and development you'll likely need to up front.
To target the actual hardware device (and up to and including release/selling your app on the Apple's AppStore) is only $99/yr. If you got an iPod Touch for your hardware target, most of the SDK applies and you are not tied into a service contract for an iPhone.
iPhone app development environment is in Objective-C, but it is a really productive, object-oriented environment so do not concerned that that may be a language you are unfamiliar with.
If you decide that your mobile app(s) would be better suited as webapps, the iPhone/iPod touch platform again is an industry leader in this space, and you have the additional benefit or being able to target other mobile platforms (and not necessarily be tied to one mobile SDK).