Instead of making apps for different platforms (iphone, ipad, android etc.) , is there a way to build cross-platform apps ? can we build it in HTML5? what are the challenges?
You should look into Appcelerator Titanium (<a href="http://www.appcelerator.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.appcelerator.com/</a>) and PhoneGap (<a href="http://www.phonegap.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.phonegap.com/</a>). They allow you to build <i>native</i> mobile apps using HTML/JavaScript, by exposing device specific API's (camera, location, address book etc.) to JavaScript.<p>There's an excellent review and comparison between the two, on StackOverflow: <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1482586/comparison-between-corona-phonegap-titanium" rel="nofollow">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1482586/comparison-betwee...</a>
Some others:<p><a href="http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/" rel="nofollow">http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/</a><p><a href="http://www.airplaysdk.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.airplaysdk.com/</a><p>Cheers,
R
I am currently trying jQuery Mobile - which is promising but at the current alpha stage there are rather too many issues at the moment to commit to it. However I do think that this framework has all the right signs for the future.
<edit> link here <a href="http://jquerymobile.com/" rel="nofollow">http://jquerymobile.com/</a> </edit> Oh and Jo looks interesting as well <a href="http://joapp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://joapp.com/</a> </>
If you're writing games, you should probably go with a C or C++ based solution with OpenGL es. That can run on all platforms except for Win phone 7 (for now).<p>For applications there are a couple of iOS/Android solutions such as Appcelerator or Phonegap
Depends. Let me start by addressing the HTML/javascript toolchains out there: they suck. One of my clients has experience of this. The first thing they tried was using one of those javascript/html systems. Its a fairly simple app that one would think was ideal for HTML/javascript, but it was barely usable and tech support was awful. Thats why they hired me.<p>What platforms are your target - the "etc" you mention? Blackberry? Blackberry is still huge but by iPhone and Android standards they are hardly smartphones. How about WP7? Interesting but so far tiny.<p>Next question: what kind of app? If its games, you use C/C++ and OpenGL for Android and iPhone.<p>Personally, I use C# and manage core business logic libraries with platform-specific user interfaces in Silverlight, MonoTouch and MonoDroid. I have a client who wants Android and later Blackberry, so for that we do the Android version in "normal" java so we can share libs with Blackberry in the future.<p>I don't think there's a one size fits all. The ones that do (e.g. Flash, or HTML/javascript) end up looking or running like ass.