iPhone sdk vs Android development

MackPaddy

Hi folks,

Just wondering if anyone has any first hand experience of developing for both platforms?

In the last few months ive made the transition from J2ME to the sexy iPhone world,but indications are there that the Android market is set to explode in 2010.So its something I definitely want to keep an eye on.

Initially the learning curve with Objective-C,memory management etc and new apis was quite high,but i must admit I really love the power of the iPhone platform and the relative ease in usin features such as GPS,touch interactions etc Im even creating a simple iPhone game at the moment which I never would have dreamed of doing on J2ME.

Anyways,I know android is based with java and xml,but I was wondering if anyone is developing on both platforms and if its a hard task to port an app on one platform to another ie iphone -> android

The Corinthian

MackPaddy wrote: »

indications are there that the Android market is set to explode in 2010.

What indications might these be?

MackPaddy

Quickly...a few indications

Devices like the current motorola droid coming thru combining a device that is as powerful as a iPhone 3gs, yet has the looks to match,appears to have set the bar for android phones.
Read more:http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/10/30/smartphone-showdown-iphone-3gs-vs-motorola-droid/

According to this site Motorola expect to sell 1 million Android-powered smartphones this quarter, with 10 million units sold in 2010

Read more: http://www.intomobile.com/2009/11/10/motorola-droid-sales-reportedly-hit-100000-since-launch.html#ixzz0YU2CLH4n

I also came across this article which illustrates the range of phone manufacturers that are/will be planning an android based phone. Such as HTC,Samsung,Motorola,Dell,Acer,Sony Ericsson.

Read more: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/19/android-galore-a-complete-list-of-the-android-phones-and-their-specs-droid-best/

A 1 min survey of android buzz on the net,but surely some signs that the future is bright for Android?

The Corinthian

It is certainly possible that there will be an increase in popularity in Android-based devices, but then again that's not difficult given its present market footprint, which lags dismally behind both Symbian and Apple, who presently dominate the market.

Scanning through the articles you've posted, they're not very convincing; the projected sales are courtesy of Moto, rather than an independent source, and the Droid-iPhone review looks like it was written by an Android fanboy.

Of course this does not mean that the future of Android will not be bright, but it's going to take time for the iPhone to be displaced from the top-spot, even in the most optimistic of projections and those also rely upon the competition not coming up with updated or new offerings.

Personally, I think that the landscape is unlikely to change for at least the next 18 months, with the iPhone still dominating the market. Android could make a difference in time, but I'd be very careful about many of the articles prophesying it's future success as many read like similar articles I read on how Linux was going to displace Windows, a few years back.

Atomic Pineapple

There is no doubt Androids market share will grow in the next year however it wont significantly damage apples share with the iphone.

I done my final year project on Android and I loved it, it is much more powerful than j2me while being easier to program for.

ilikerashers

Is Gartner good enough?

http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/10/07/android.2nd.place.in.share.in.3.years/

I think a free operating system is!

The Corinthian

ilikerashers wrote: »

Is Gartner good enough?

I'd want to read their data and analysis, TBH. 2012 is a good bit away and they have projected a situation whereby the iPhone's market share will effectively crash and burn, overtaken by Symbian, so before accepting such a prediction it would be good to examine it.

Not saying it's wrong, especially as it is in the far distant future (in dog, I mean IT, years), but even the big boys are just speculating half the time with such long term predictions predictions - I have a similar report somewhere from 1999 that said some great things about WAP's adoption levels by 2008. I'll post it if I can dig it up.

MackPaddy

While its obvious that because the mobile tech space moves so fast as to make predictions pretty much useless(WAP is a good example)

As a mobile app developer the only 2 platforms that interest me at the moment are the Apple store and the Android market place.Simply because these 2 platforms give me the power and tools to build truly innovative apps-and have a great model for app distribution (once you get your app thru the gates

Id be very wary about the Symbian platform,and again alot of buzz around of Nokia dropping support for this platform in favour of Maemo (which is on the current N900 phone)Also while Nokia touts that it has the largest market share of all the handset manufacturers,in reality the number of nokia phones that support the OVI store is only a small fraction. (Ive built an app for the Ovi store successfully)

The Corinthian

MackPaddy wrote: »

Id be very wary about the Symbian platform,and again alot of buzz around of Nokia dropping support for this platform in favour of Maemo (which is on the current N900 phone)Also while Nokia touts that it has the largest market share of all the handset manufacturers,in reality the number of nokia phones that support the OVI store is only a small fraction. (Ive built an app for the Ovi store successfully)

Agreed. Nokia really seem to be in a bind over Symbian. On one side Symbian, while originally an innovator, is really is lagging behind the rest - especially in terms of touch screen UI's - and it would almost be as easy to start over (with something like Maemo) as try to bring Symbian up to speed.

On the other hand, Nokia paid a lot of money to buy Symbian - and not even that long ago - so it cannot really walk away from it either.

Damned if they do and damned if they don't... either way, they'll need to shìt or get off the pot soon.

ilikerashers

Damn few things android is adding to it's features.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/five_fabulous_new_features_google_unveiled_today.php

smackyB

I've developed an app or two for android and I really like working with the sdk however some things like layout coordination are much better handled on the iphone. Also google seem to have kept very quiet on when paid apps will be available here so I don;t think there's much of an incentive right now for ppl to develop for the platform except as a hobby...

PDelux

What programming langauge are you guys using with symbian and iphone sdk?
Is it java or C++?
any advantage one over the other?

Atomic Pineapple

PDelux wrote: »

What programming langauge are you guys using with symbian and iphone sdk?
Is it java or C++?
any advantage one over the other?

Pretty sure you can only use C++ to develop for Symbian and iPhone

PDelux

OK, c++ is fine.. but i did a google earlier for some example iphone source code and it looked really weird, *.m files and such.
I'll see if i can download the sdks some day and take a look.

jester77

iphone development is in objective c and not c++.

Atomic Pineapple

jester77 wrote: »

iphone development is in objective c and not c++.

sorry yeh I knew it was something like that!

MackPaddy

Not to split hairs but you can also develop your app with C and C++ as Objective-C is a superset of C.

ethernet

And, to confuse things even further, C# is also a possibility: http://monotouch.net

Atomic Pineapple

Some nice looking devices coming with Android now, good to see it pick up a bit of pace (albeit mostly in America)

Cant wait to get my hands on :

a Motorola Droid
a HTC Nexus One
a Sony Ecriccson Xperia X10 (really want that one)

Skud

ethernet wrote: »

And, to confuse things even further, C# is also a possibility: http://monotouch.net

you can also develop in flex and go to iphone, android, symbian or winmo using this: http://developer.openplug.com/

Sheeps

I'm currently stuck between buying an iPhone and waiting for the new google nexus one. I probably wont develop for the iPhone seeing as I don't have a mac and I've done a bit of java development for mobile devices before and I liked it. Everything is telling me to wait for the new google nexus one, but I really need a new phone. Someone tell me what to do please.

The Corinthian

No easy answer, I'm afraid - anyone who claims to have the answer for what the mobile OS landscape is going to look like in two years is BS'ing you. Apple is likely to remain dominant in the smartphone market for the next year, however Android will make an impact. How big an impact and whether that impact is mainly at Apple's or one of the other OS's expense is another question. Nokia remains a dark horse, in that it may be able to turn around its fortunes with Maemo - or not - and if so, whether it will be able to do so by the end of 2010 or take longer.

You face the classic developer's dilemma of what technology to pin your time to. Pick right and you become an expert before everyone else is trying out the Hello World tutorial, pick wrong and you you'll become and expert in an also ran.

Around eleven years ago, I boned up on two emerging technologies; WAP and REBOL. The former made me a lot of money (while it lasted), the latter is still around, but never really took off - I still use it from time to time to write screen scrapers.

Atomic Pineapple

Good post there by The Corinthian,

I done my final year SW Dev project on Android last year (2008/2009) and researched it and built a location based application.

Now Android was so new at the time that info was very limited and what building the app was difficult however I really enjoyed it.

And my research led me to think Android could be pretty big but it was a long way off at the time. So I never expected to get a job working on Android.

But last December a small Irish company came across my project website and offered me a job researching how to port there app from symbian to Android and help build it.

Having spent a month in a commercial enviroment it seems that interest in Android is growing nicely, especially in America where Nokia has little presence.

If your after a phone how about the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 out on Feb 18th, its the one I'll be getting, you can pre order it on play.com sim free for €650