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Apps Android Development - 'Easiest Route'

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DarrylKegan

Lurker
Hello Good people!
After doing some online research i found that there are mainly three ways to develop an application for Android, i.e

  • Using JAVA (SDK)
  • Using NDK - C/C++.
  • Using Web Technologies like HTML5/CSS3/JS
What do you guys think is the easiest route to make android applications, i know this can be subjective but what would you pick if you had to start all over again?

EDIT: Please state your opinion based on following parameters :-


  1. Which of the listed platform would give developer best control over the hardware functions of the android device. Eg. Accelerometer, Voice Control, and device specific functions like barometer.
  2. Which would yield the best UI design and overall speed of the application
  3. Perhaps the best documented platform? Eg Wikis, tutorials, APIs.
  4. And most important which one would be easier to code in?

I already know C , Python and XHTML.

Thanks,
Darryl.

PS: English is not my native language, forgive me if made any grammatical errors! :)
 
Any response to this would be entirely subjective.

What kind of previous programming experience do you have?
 
1) Java/SDK
2) UI Design is probably easiest using the Java SDK (Though some could argue PhoneGap would be easier, but it really depends on if you prefer web dev over coding or not). As for speed, Almost all android devices anymore can either natively or JIT Bytecode, so the NDK will only be slightly faster, if at all (Except when it comes to OpenGL. The NDK beats it by a mile). If you are targeting applications and not games, then there is really no point in using the NDK as it only adds code complexity and doesn't really benefit you at all).
3) That would definitely be The Android SDK, though PhoneGap is also pretty well documented. The NDK is almost entirely undocumented.
4) That depends on your past programming experience and your personal preference.
 
Thanks for detailed answer, jonbonazza.
I spent most of my week reading/experimenting with phonegap, and i think it floats my boat, as I'm pretty comfortable with Javascript.
Another quick question, Do you think a Cross platform app will be able to compete with native apps when it comes to gaming? As I'm really interested in developing some simple gaming applications.
 
For very simple games, such as puzzle games or games similar to drawsomething and such, I think PhoneGap would suffice, however for advanced games, PhoneGap et all will be far too slow. In fact, for graphically intense 2D games (such as RPGs and such) and any kind of 3D game, you are pretty much forced to use OpenGL and the NDK as even the Android 2d Graphics package in java is too slow for them (and obviously can't even be used for 3D games).
 
For a non-Java option there's Easy Coder, a high-level scripting system just being released (but still under development) which is aimed at simpler games (think Scrabble rather than Tomb Raider) and similar graphical apps. For example there's a Solitaire demo on the website. The whole thing runs on any Android device and you can edit on the phone itself or on the product website. The author is contactable and highly receptive to feature requests.
 
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