Toolkit options to write a crossplatform mobile app in 2012?

Question

I'm currently investigating the alternatives for crossplatform development for Android and iPhone (Windows 8 could be a nice addition). The app is basically a "map with an asociated app", and certainly not a game.

Searching here I see many outdated advice and tools from 2010/2011, but since then Apple has changed their policies and surely new things have appeared.

My current list and light research (might have facts wrong) is:

1. Monotouch/Monodroid: .NET (Mono) framework. Create "native" apps on both platforms. Requires rebuilding UI code (or similar things).
2. Appcelerator: Javascript framework to compile native apps.
3. Corona: Similar to Appcelerator.
4. Phonegap: Similar idea, but looks like it uses a wrapper to appify HTML5 content
5. SenchaTouch: Another HTML5 based platform.
6. Wink: Yet another HTML5 toolkit.
7. XVLM: Android to ObjC compiler, probably creating ugly iOS apps.
8. Unity3D: For games only.
9. Moai: For games only.

So, there are three main ideas, with some frameworks implementing each, it seems to me:

• Have an abstraction layer over native iOS/Android code and build for each platform using the provided layer. (Monotouch, Unity3D)
• Use HTML5 (coding in Javascript) and some kind of wrapper to "appify" the web content. (PhoneGap,Sencha,Wink)
• Code using a framework that will output as a compilation pass (or similar) a native app for each supported platform (Moai, XVLM,Appcelerator,Corona)

The questions:

1. Is there a fourth idea I haven't yet found?
2. Is there any blatant mistake in my research for any of the specified frameworks?
3. Is there any known problem for map integration with any of these ideas or specific frameworks?

Answer 1

From what I have experienced, if you want to have a native app go Mono, if you don't need native go PhoneGap. Native is best of the UI is very important, ie games or fairly graphical apps. But from business type app, CRUD, Phone gap works well.

Answer 2

My main experience is with Mono for Android and MonoTouch, so I can't personally speak much to the other options. I personally find it to be the best option there is, as it allows you to share a large amount of your code across the platforms (even extending to non-mobile platforms if you stick with .NET), while still allowing for a 100% native UI, which is extremely important. If you're looking for resources on getting started, I have this video which discusses approaches and libraries for sharing a lot of code across platforms, and also this book which covers the same thing, but also expands to talk about how to do things like store data, use maps, access the network, etc.

I also want to mention MonoGame, which is absent from your list. MonoGame is an open source XNA implementation that sits on top of Mono to allow you to target iOS/Android/Max OS X.

Answer 3

Only a partial answer:

Ad 2. Appcelerator / Titanium is more than just HTML5. I read this pretty extensive comparison between PhoneGap and Titanium the other day on Hackers News. I found it very informative. The link points to the HN comments, the link to the actual article is at the top.