This is how Google Inbox and Google Spreadsheets works. See the slides from my recently produced GWT Create Session (<a href="http://t.co/ZvoaHxCoZT" rel="nofollow">http://t.co/ZvoaHxCoZT</a>). J2ObjC slide deck here (<a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mW_Plm5jAygELf7qjVK7ZSIFjha0Q3TjOttX4x8oVWY/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000&slide=id.g6c99c794a_2_26" rel="nofollow">https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mW_Plm5jAygELf7qjVK7...</a>) Videos of the conference will be online soon.<p>Prior to that, some 20% Googlers also produced the PlayN library (<a href="https://github.com/threerings/playn" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/threerings/playn</a>) This was taken over by Michael Bayne who added an iOS backend by Bytecode -> IKVM -> Mono conversion. I beleive j2objc and RoboVM backends exist now as well.<p>The major benefit of the j2objc approach is the avoidance of GC in favor of ARC, the conversion of message-sends into C-method calls when possible, and integration with existing iOS toolchain.<p>When we started, it seemed like an iffy idea, but after developing a product delivered to millions of users on a high volume site (gmail) that has 70% code sharing, and being able to simultaneously develop, test, and deploy across the platforms reasonably efficiently, a lot of skeptics have become converts to the concept.
The architecture (shared business logic with platform-specific UI) sounds a lot like React Native. The difference is that in RN, your UI is primarily specified in JSX on all platforms. This means you can even reuse a lot of your non-platform-specific UI.<p>I expect that in a year or two, there will be a React Native UI library that implements Material Design on Android and the Web, perhaps even with iOS bindings for things that are similar across platforms. It will always be a best practice to adopt the conventions of the platform you're on, but it does nobody any good to implement the same UI three times. Reuse your <Text>, your <Image/>, your <ProductListing/>, etc. and save the platform-specific UI for things that change across platforms (like navigation paradigms).
Nice to know about it.<p>Sadly Oracle seems more keen in pushing the brain dead idea of Oracle Mobile Application Framework[0].<p>Regardless of the Google vs Oracle situation on Android, they could provide JIT and AOT compilers for the remaining mobile platforms, instead of leaving it in the hands of third parties.<p>I have turned to Qt/C++ and Xamarin for my hobby mobile development as cause of that.<p>[0]<a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/maf/overview/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/maf/overvi...</a>
Another great (though not free) framework is Tabris: <a href="http://developer.eclipsesource.com/tabris/" rel="nofollow">http://developer.eclipsesource.com/tabris/</a>
Well, those who have done some iOS or Android development know that any good app requires extensive hacking. Unfortunately this doesn't work in a cross-platform manner. For the simplest applications having a cross-platform framework is fine but if you really want to make an immersive app for iOS or Android you need to go native. Now this is not to say that some applications will work perfectly fine under this framework.
This is similar to Kirin framework (<a href="http://github.com/futureplatforms/kirin" rel="nofollow">http://github.com/futureplatforms/kirin</a>)<p>Cross platform development in Java is compiled to JS via GWT and can be deployed anywhere Java or JS is available.<p>It powers apps with hundreds of thousands of users on iOS, Android, Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox One.
The approach is similar to the one chosen by Haxe. I would keep a close eye on the progresses made by this open source language. For the moment the most mature translation target is the C++ one, however there are also targets for Java and C#. Sadly the community seems to be 95% focused on mobile gaming.
libgdx also uses robovm for ios, but prefers gwt for web. since its 'just java' desktop and android dev comes free.<p>If you're into build *gl based guis it's a great cross platform toolkit in disguise (especially with scene2d).
This looks awesome! I can hardly wait for the promised C++ and ObjC++ support. I wonder how much gtime the main committer, Bret Johnson, is able to devote to this project.