Already know iphone, Want to target Android, Best approach?

Question

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!

Answer 1

If you want to stick to Objective C, checkout out Apportable, which enables you to build and deploy Objective C apps to Android.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

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.