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Ask HN: Best way to write an app for both Android and iOS?

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Re: Ask HN: Best way to write an app for both Android and iOS?

#31

Post by kwhinnery »

ConceptDog wrote: post #26
fookyong wrote: post #15

Depends on what kind of app I suppose, but if it is anything to do with 2D gaming, I'm totally loving Corona so far. I come from a web background (php/javascript) and I'm lost on Objective-C. But I picked up the basics of Lua in about a day and the next day had built a simple game. It's wickedly fast to get to grips with and the documentation is detailed and easy to read. http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/

Voted up for Corona. For 3D Games, look to Unity. I know people are have allot of success developing cross platform using it. But for 2D on mobile, Corona wins. If they ever decided to go the Appcelerator work and come up with a deployment that also targets OSX and Windows at the same time, they'd absolutely rule.

I agree, we need to support unified projects.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to write an app for both Android and iOS?

#32

Post by whatever_dude »

semanticist wrote: post #11

Depending on what you need your application to do, I would definitely go down the web app + PhoneGap route. It's extremely easy to develop and test the app in a webkit browser, and then in the relevant phone simulators, and PhoneGap will very very easily wrap your web app into a native application - it also provides extra JavaScript APIs to access some hardware features, like the camera and geolocation and so on. You…

How is performance in the browser for PhoneGap applications? I'm not expecting anything native, but I tested some of the sample apps on my Android phone and they were... /underwhelming/ - clicking anything would take around 3 seconds just to switch to a new view, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to write an app for both Android and iOS?

#33

Post by semanticist »

whatever_dude wrote: post #32
semanticist wrote: post #11

Depending on what you need your application to do, I would definitely go down the web app + PhoneGap route. It's extremely easy to develop and test the app in a webkit browser, and then in the relevant phone simulators, and PhoneGap will very very easily wrap your web app into a native application - it also provides extra JavaScript APIs to access some hardware features, like the camera and geolocation and so on. You…

How is performance in the browser for PhoneGap applications? I'm not expecting anything native, but I tested some of the sample apps on my Android phone and they were... /underwhelming/ - clicking anything would take around 3 seconds just to switch to a new view, etc.

My experience - at the moment - is specifically with jQTouch and iPhones. I've found that it performs well for simple views, but haven't tried anything complex.

In general, PhoneGap's going to perform the same as if you tried it in the phone's browser. From some stuff I tried before, Android browser performance was noticeably slower than iPhone browser performance, but not so much as to make it unusable.

I suspect it'll depend heavily on the device you're testing.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to write an app for both Android and iOS?

#36

Post by eapen »

Adobe AIR/Flex has the option to export files to iOS, Android and Blackberry. I tried exporting a demo app to Android and it worked well. I havent tried the other platforms though. Obviously, I doubt the performance would be as good as a native app but a mobile application for a school which doesn't require a game engine, I would say Adobe AIR/Flex is the way to go. But since you require Wifi triangulation or GPS, this might not be an option.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to write an app for both Android and iOS?

#37

Post by SeamusBrady »

How about Runtime Revolutions LiveCode? I have been a fan for years - never used the mobile version but they are a great little company and their other products rock.

LiveCode is an offshoot of the HyperCard codebase and will run on everything from a toaster to your car. The apps seem pretty slick in the demos. Android support in in testing.

http://www.runrev.com/products/mobile-deployment/overview/

Re: Ask HN: Best way to write an app for both Android and iOS?

#39

Post by parad0x »

semanticist wrote: post #11

Depending on what you need your application to do, I would definitely go down the web app + PhoneGap route. It's extremely easy to develop and test the app in a webkit browser, and then in the relevant phone simulators, and PhoneGap will very very easily wrap your web app into a native application - it also provides extra JavaScript APIs to access some hardware features, like the camera and geolocation and so on. You…

I totally agree with this approach. It's what we use, and it's really quick to get started with.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to write an app for both Android and iOS?

#40

Post by rufugee »

pistoriusp wrote: post #16

Nothing beats native. I've tried Appcelerator and you'll get to a point near the end where you've got to do the other 80% of your application and the third party framework is going to fight you till completion, or some state of completion that you're ok with. One of the problems is that the simplification also requires you to give up your power. If you're doing a simple application then maybe a third party tool will…

One of the nice things about Appcelerator, as opposed to Corona, is that it's open source and they have guides (iOS: http://guides.appcelerator.com/en/module_ios.html, Android: http://developer.appcelerator.com/guides/en/module_android.h...) for extending the framework with native code. So, when you hit that inevitable wall, you can drop to native code and make it work on both platforms. I find the speed of development in Appcelerator quickly outweighs the drawbacks.

That said, if you're developing a game, Corona is the better option. It's far more efficient in terms of FPS.

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