I have developed an app with Eclipse, a little stupid game.
If I wanted to port it in iOS, is there any hurting way to do it?
I mean, can I re-use xml code for GUI?
May I re-use my DB (I think so, it would be horrible if not).
If I learnt how to use libgdx or unity it would be compatible with both platforms?
Is there a good guide to understand one of them? I can't find any good guides online.
If you write your game in Unity or PhoneGap/Cordova, it would be compatible with both devices. I personally recommend Unity more because it's geared toward game development.
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I have my iOS game and I would like to upload it to the Google Play Store but I have no experience with Java/Android programming so I ask if anybody knows a faster way to port an iOS game to Android without having to program all again.
Note: My game uses the Sprite Kit framework.
Thanks
as far as I know there no easy two click transition App for this. If you know the inner mechanics of the game, then it should be easy to rewrite it. Take a look at a libgdx for java.It supports needed libs and allows an easy android exports (http://libgdx.badlogicgames.com/)
Is there a best/good way to go about cross-platform app development, like a game, for Android and iOS simultaneously (and Mac OS X)?
Just to simply develop an app that uses OpenGL and C/C++ only should be very simple, shouldn't it? As long as I didn't get into sound or even interaction at first?
I looked into the NDK, but there are all these warnings about how people shouldn't use it. I want to do everything myself as much as possible so I have not looked into things like Cocos2D ... is there any tutorial which just gets like an openGL "Hello World" going cross platform?
Thanks
Bob
Unity3d (game engine) is the best and easiest way to develop cross platform games. Due to the facts thats is supports many platforms.
The Platforms supported by unity3d are Android, Iphone, Mac & Window, web, Flash, Ps3, Wii, and even Linux.
The main benefit of using it is you do not have to rewrite your code (only some minor changes) to port it other platforms.
It supports C#, Javascript as well as boo for scripting.
The best thing about it. It has a strong support and great community to solve your problems.
You can create a cross platform Hello World in Unity3d in few minutes for various platforms like mac, windows, android, iphone, web.
I know it is not close (unity3d) as you want to pure coding enviroment but if your objective is cross platform games then unity3d is the best way (also the fastest).
Check it out http://unity3d.com/
I'm currently developing a multi-platform game (iOS,Android,Java-openGL,Flash and HTML5) using a google framework called PlayN http://code.google.com/p/playn/
It works great and have had a good feedback from the author when I hit problems
I'm planning on writing a multiplayer game with Android as my primary focus as far as OS/platform, but I would like the ability to port the game to at least the web. I'm looking into Andengine as I'm just starting out with java and android and it seems the most noob friendly. The game shouldn't be too demanding as it will be a 2d turn based game with simple animations and chat.
So my main question - is it possible to port a Andengine game to the web?
If not what would you suggest?
I looked at libgdx, but I'm concerned that it might be a little to advanced for someone just starting out with java/android. Am I correct in my assumption?
Another idea I've been playing around with is writing the game in Flash and porting it to Android with Adobe Air - does anyone have any experience with this? Is it a bad idea? I kind of have my doubts of how well this will work, but if nobody can really talk me down from this idea, I might just go this route.
I've also considered writing the game in pygame as it seems easier but I don't like the idea of players having to download something like Pygame Subset for Android or Kivy to run the game. So basically if the other options are either too difficult or wont work on android then I'm probably just going to go with Andengine and consider rewriting it later for the web if people like it enough.
Moai SDK is an open source multi-platform framework for game developers.
One codes in lua - a dynamic programming language (that is easy to learn).
Apps made using Moai can be deployed to iOS, android and the chrome web store.
Moai could be an alternative.
Andengine makes a fine starting place. (I have made 3 projects with it now and I really like it). but it does not deploy to anything other than android. That is its strength and its weakness. As a strength, it is very easy to integrate android OS features and libraries with your project and has good performance. And as a weakness, well, it only runs on android.
Code-once publish anywhere platforms trade off development time for speed and size usually.
Some top competitors in that area are:
Ancsa Corona
AppMobi
PhoneGap
Unity3D
Adobe Flash(bonus of web distribution)
and others. (Moai SDK listed by #andrew, for example)
Each platform has had successful games launched with them. Find the one that suits you and your projects needs best. Do not forget to check for things you will want to integrate, such as using Facebook for mobile, or AdMob, or OpenFeint or other 3rd party services.
Good luck and enjoy you game making!
Just a side note, user do not need to download "Kivy" to run the game. As other toolkit, your application will provide Kivy as other libraries you'll use.
I have been making applications in objective-c for a while now and feel i have a good understanding of it. I have made many applications and started to make a few basic games.
However now i want to target android as well. I recently saw applications such as Titanium and the Corona SDK that let you create applications in one language and deploy to both platforms.
My question is, for anyone experienced with these, would it be better to just learn how to code android applications and then make android and IOS apps separate, or would it be a much better idea to start using one of the development tools listed above?
I am mostly talking about the creation of standard applications, not games.
Also more importantly, if i was to apply for a job developing apps, what would the company look for? someone experienced in each platforms sdk respectively or someone familiar with the titanium or Corona sdk to code and output the applications simultaneously.
I have looked around but could only find info regarding people who have not started either android or iphone development. I am already very familiar with objective C and iphone development.
If anyone could help that would be great!
Thanks for your time!
I would suggest learning the native Java SDK. If you do anything more than simple apps, you will feel constricted and limited by the "write-once" SDKs, as you will want to exploit the special features of each platform.
In terms of employability, if you know both native iPhone and Android SDKs, I would expect your employability to be much higher than just knowing the cross-platform language. By having a diverse knowledge of "complex" languages (such as Java, and Objective-C), if employers wanted a cross-platform approach, they are likely to recognise your adaptability to the task at hand. Conversely, by only knowing cross-platform development, you are limiting your chance of work - if the client wants to use a more in-depth feature of the platform, which is not available in your cross-platform language.
Do you have any experience with java? If not that is where I'd suggest you start. And unfortunately there is no end all be all for what potential employers may be looking for. It would depend on specifically what they are aiming to have you create(Something that makes more specialized use of one of the platform features would likely require a native app. Where as something mostly based on content could use one of the phoneGap type solutions because it would result in farthest reach). I can tell you though any of the "write once - deploy everywhere" platforms that are currently available will limit the amount of platform APIs you'll get access to. Because of that I would personally suggest that you dig into the native platform some and once you have a decent understanding of how things fit together at a high level maybe start looking at the other solutions.
If you know Java, then my suggestion is to use native SDK for developing in Android. The OO concept is similar, but the design is somehow different from iPhone development.
Platform like Titanium may be good for standard apps. But I think gradually you will want to use and tweak the native libraraies functionality. Then common frameworks are weak.
I have been developing for iPhone, Android, JME, BlackBerry also tried HTML5, my understanding is to use the native platform if possible. But the app is small, e.g. a simple RSS reader, then common platform is okay.
But in most of the cases, developer want to use special features provided by the native SDKs.
If you want to stick to Objective C, checkout out Apportable, which enables you to build and deploy Objective C apps to Android.
I'm facing a dilemma: I have a solid ASP.NET development experience in C# and looking to start mobile development. I have done research and know that there are some hacks for getting a development environment for iOS on windows, and recently after Apple lifted ban on 3rd party dev apps, Adobe Flash CS5 can be used to package iOS apps. I do have some prior experience with Flash and AS2.
So my question is: should i use Flash CS5 for iOS and MonoDroid for Android or should i just get Mac and learn Objective C for iOS and learn Java for Android? What would be the most practical solution?
Thank you in advance
EDIT: In the end, after trying out both Java Development in Eclipse against Android SDK and Mono for Android, I decided it's best to write Android apps in native environment. Eclipse FTW! As for iOS, I think it will also be best to use native Mac tools and Objective C.
While there are ways to get around using Objective-C for iOS development, I'm going to recommend that you learn it anyway. You need a Mac to deploy anyway, you might as well use it to develop as well.
Objective-C is bloody bizarre when you first start using it, with its strange square brackets and odd ways of doing things. However, once you've spent some time writing code in it, a change happens in your brainmeats and you suddenly realize that this is really an elegant way to work. Xcode is also quite an excellent IDE.
You can start with the iPhone Applications Programming lessons on iTunesU from Stanford. It's free, and covers what you'll need to know pretty throughly.
Worst case, you've learned a new language, and how Apple thinks iPhone apps should be developed. Even if you ultimately use something else, that understanding will help you out long term.
Take a look at monotouch & MonoDroid (Coming Soon), it still requires a mac. But you can open your solutions in VS2010 and use resharper, and just use the Mac for deploying and building. Take a look at this Here to open monodevelop solutions in Visual Studio.
http://monotouch.net
For Android, I would recommend learning Java. I just started working with Android in Java on my Windows machine after developing some ASP.NET sites. I'm familiar with Java, but the syntax is so similar to C# that it's very easy to understand and pick up. So far it is more difficult figuring out and remembering the details of the architecture of mobile applications as opposed to the language. It also helps that there are a number of good books and online resources for converting from C# to Java and vice versa.
Update: I found a good post over on programmers.stackexchange.com that talks about C# vs. Java for Android development with good discussion on the pros and cons of switching: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/33076/as-a-c-developer-would-you-learn-java-to-develop-for-android-or-use-monodroid-i
#Dimitri I was almost your identical skill set when iOS 2.0 was released. I decided to try and learn Objective-C and now its my language of choice. Its a bit different to start with but most of the changes are simple to learn. Whether you are programming for iOS using Objective-C or something like Monotouch either way you have to learn the frameworks. If you use Monotouch you will never be able to be on the bleeding edge of the iOS enhancements. Using Objective-C you will be able to use the latest beta APIs and ensure your apps work right. You will need a Mac to deploy to the App store so just bite the bullet and get a Mac. Get a MacBook Air 13"
I went the route of Monotouch for iOS and Java for the Android. Unfortunately, Monotouch still requires a Mac. I am currently participating in the MonoDroid beta, which looks pretty promising too. It's all a matter of taste. I should also note that, for the most part, HTML/Javascript is a nice way to get portable apps in some circumstances. I would expect HTML5 apps to become even more viable as tooling improves.
I choose to use the Mono, MonoTouch and Mono for Android technology stack from Novell. When coupled with a micro framework like MonoCross (open source in Google code) it helps me write applications for both iPhone and Android devices while leveraging a shared code base for much of it. I would highly suggest the same route, it has allowed me to implement numerous solutions for small businesses and enterprise customers alike.
I didn't have the ASP .NET experience like you, but I was a Pocket PC/Windows CE developer so C# and the .NET Framework were also my strongest tools when I started on journey towards Mono many moons ago.
You can do iOS,Android and Windows using Xamarin.
Android and Windows can be done easily but doing iOS on Windows was tough so far like networked mac is required for debug and development but things have changed now.
Microsoft has introduced Xamarin Live Player using which you can debug,develop and deploy the app completely in windows without the help of any Apple system but to sign and release the app to appstore you will need Apple System though