10 Dec, 2009
A detailed primer on building cross platform mobile applications
Posted by Bhavin Turakhia
I finally had a few hours today morning to wrap up my study on comparison of mobile application platforms that allow developing cross-device applications easily using familiar technologies. Here is a quick braindump of all the links and resources I went through -
Rhomobile
- Google TechTalk on Rhodes - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2pztOky_L0
- http://rhomobile.com/products/rhodes/
- http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/2009/07/cross-platform-mobile-apps-with-rhomobile/
- http://www.rhohub.com/
- Notes
- Dual licensed. Though license is cheap – $500
- Code is written in html and ruby
(though a python interpreter would have gotten more smileys from me ) - interesting approach – uses the native browser component of the cellphone itself to render the html and a web server to host the app – so javascript support will be random based on the phone browser support
- sqlite support
- Supports iphone, windows mobile, blackberry, android, Symbisn etc
- Basically rhodes runs a mini ruby web server and an html rendering engine all in 2.3MB
- Supports native capabilities like camera, gps, PIM data, SMS etc
Phone gap
- http://phonegap.com/
- Check the video on their site
- Notes
- Fully open source and free
- Code written in html+javascript
- Supports iphone, blackberry and android
Pyxis Mobile
- http://pyxismobile.com/platform/technical-overview/
- Build one configuration and deploy to BlackBerry, iPhone, and Windows Mobile all at the same time
- Skinning, scripting, localized languages, complex workflow management, push, hotkeys, mapping & LBS, camera support, signature capture, GUI calendar, disambiguation, hotkeys, and much more
Titanium Mobile
- http://www.appcelerator.com/products/titanium-mobile/
- This is an upcoming mobile platform by appcelerator
- I am quite familiar with the company since we already use their Titanium Desktop and have two fulltime contributors to it
Quick Connect
Comparison sites and articles
- http://blog.twinapex.fi/2009/09/30/cross-platform-mobile-application-development-and-payment/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_development
- http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source/building-native-mobile-applications-open-source-mobile-platforms-735
- http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobilize/iphone-development-tools-work-way-you-do-309
- http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10202598-94.html
- http://www.slideshare.net/inouemak/rhodes-and-phone-gap
- http://techboise.com/multi-platform-mobile-development-and-quickconnect
Some others
- http://quickconnect.pbworks.com/
- http://www.mobinex.biz/smartface-platform.html
- http://qt.nokia.com/products/qt-for-mobile-platforms
- http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/
It appears that the rho has changed their licensing fee. It used to be about 5000$ upfront and a percentage of the app sales. Have you been able to verify the 500$ number?
@arjun: check http://rhomobile.com/products/rhodes/ at the bottom. what you are talking about is possible their RhoSync service which is not required for writing apps
I checked the site and they have the new rates up. Thx!
Recently I saw demo of Mitr @MoMoDelhi event from SpiceLabs. I really liked it.. They’ve simulators of around 270 [They claim it!!!] on which developers can test before release… It’s really great work by an Indian team, if it’s upto what they claim…
I hope my comments r in-line with your post.
Regards
Navrang
@navrang
i used it actually
and it performs very well first of all it is supporting number of mobile sets.
and u r getting most of applications in one pack .
Mohit
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Ya http://spicelabs.in apps performs very well
Thanks
mainly the games hangman
i love it
Nice list, Could add Airplay SDK, it hits all the major phones and works in native C++
MITR SDK is available for developer trials. Drop email at dev@spicelabs.in