Comments on: MegaTrend #9: Cross-platform Mobile Development

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 01:28:15 +0000

Hi Tim,

Thanks for stopping by and sorry for the late answer. I am currently burried in work but would defenetly like to checkout Airplay as soon as time allows. Such real-world examples and stories, videos etc. are exactly what I am after. Can you maybe point me to the sources for this?

By: Tim Closs

Tim Closs — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:45:27 +0000

Ben, that’s a good overview of the fragmentation problem for developers.

Web runtime SDKs (be they OEM, OS, operator, or 3rd party) are one possible solution for one category of apps.

Another approach is cross-platform “native” (compiled C++) SDKs. These can deliver higher-performance UIs and potentially more functional apps. Qt is one example, and another is our own Airplay SDK ( http://www.airplaysdk.com )

Airplay SDK allows development of apps in ‘vanilla’ C++, on PC or Mac – you compile to x86 or ARM, then deploy as a single step to all supported OS’s included iPhone, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile and BREW… and soon to Maemo, LiMo, Samsung Bada and more. You can test your actual ARM code on the desktop, removing clumsy on-device debugging.

Airplay SDK is already very well proven in the highly-demanding sphere of advanced mobile games; e.g. the recent ‘Call of Duty: World at War: ZOMBIES’ (Activision) which was the #1 grossing app on the US and UK App Stores in November.

I’d be interested in getting feedback from any of the developers here.

By: Israfil Coskun

Israfil Coskun — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:37:41 +0000

Hi Ben,

Good analysis on past, present and future. I think it is appropriate to add additional category to cross-platform development:

We have developed Smartface Designer to overcome fragmentation problem since 2004.

It is a drag-and-drop cross-platform mobile app development program (IDE).

please check http://www.mobinex.biz/ feedbacks always wellcome

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:02:34 +0000

Thanks for the Link of the upcoming book. I plan to go into details on those SDK’s as soon as I have tried them. As for your USP, informed by various sources, I also would have said the sync engine, and the hosted dev, the flip side being the license fees if the app is not open sourced – for mid-larger corps though not likely an issue I guess.

Anyways I hope to be able to get my hands dirty on this as I think really super-hot subject.

By: Adam Blum

Adam Blum — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:55:18 +0000

Thanks for your post and your comments on the Rhomobile blog. Thought it worth pointing out that Rhodes (Rhomobile’s framework) allows development in HTML/CSS/JavaScript but also Ruby (in this latter area it is unique in the mobile world). The other big differentiators are: synchronized data, support for all smartphones and a hosted development service. A third party in depth comparison is available in the alpha of Graupera and Allen’s book on crossplatform smartphone development: http://www.apress.com/book/view/9781430228684