CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidiphonemonocordovacross-platform
Riddle
Riddle

Reputation: 587

Cross-platform and good performance mobile application for iPhone and Android

I need to develop an Application for both iPhone and Android platforms. I am looking for a cross-platform development frameworks. The important factors need to be taken into consideration are :

  1. The App will be running in intranet environment (with NO internet connection).
  2. Drag and drop features will be available in this App.
  3. Needs to use the barcode reader library.
  4. Needs to use map (it will probably be a custom map)
  5. Receives Push notifications (currently I have mqtt in mind, since there is not internet connection)

If possible I only want to maintain only one source code for both platforms. I have done some research and I found 2 frameworks which are PhoneGap and Mono(touch and droid).

  1. PhoneGap seems to be slow.
  2. Mono need two code base for 2 platforms, only the libraries can be shared (correct me if I am wrong). This is my another worries about mono: http://redth.info/2010/04/09/is-monotouch-now-dead-in-the-water-what-does-apples-new-iphone-developer-agreement-mean

I know the native is the best but for the sake of maintenance and reusing our developer talent (which are C#, HTML, JavaScript) we need to find out the second best option.

Note : Please bear in mind the first 5 features listed on top for your answer. Thanks in advance.

UPDATE:
After exploring a few more tools, I like the performance of Appcelerator as well. But writing the whole app in JavaScript looks very messy to me and can't use OOP. And the extra package size of (5~7 MB) is also something to take note for frequent releases environment. I like to hear from you guys as well.

I will be updating our decision in coming few weeks.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 3302

Answers (4)

Nick Cipollina
Nick Cipollina

Reputation: 551

Just so you know, we were using Appcelerator at my last company, and the performance for Android was less than desirable. Our lead developer found the Mono products, and hasn't looked back.

Upvotes: 0

dodgy_coder
dodgy_coder

Reputation: 13053

This recent article here may be helpful. It contains a rundown of several new cross platform mobile frameworks including Mono, Appcelerator Titanium, Rhodes, PhoneGap, MoSync and Moai.

From reading your requirements I'd say that either MoSync or Titanium might be the best fit for you. Apart from PhoneGap, which is really just a web app running inside a mobile browser (and might be the reason you thought it was slow), they all generate native UI code apps.

Upvotes: 3

FlappySocks
FlappySocks

Reputation: 3880

How about doing a hybrid application, using a mixture of native code and HTML5. Write native code for all the IO, and heavy lifting, and for the GUI use jQuery or similar in a web control embedded in your app. Android has a web control that allows you to interact with javascript. I assume you can do the same with Apple. I'm trying to do something similar myself using Monodroid, and its looking very promising, although I discovered Monodroid does not have native Javascript interface yet.

Upvotes: 1

Saurabh
Saurabh

Reputation: 22883

go for http://www.appcelerator.com/

They first compile code in native code so performance is like native and they have barcode reader, push notification (via urban airship) too...

Upvotes: 1

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