Apps Tools to Develop an Application to work on Android and iPhone?

[Priya.jala]

Hi, I want to develop an application and it should work on both Android and iPhone mobile platforms. I have two queries: 1) Do I need to develop the application individually using Android SDK and iPhone SDKs? 2) Is there any common platform (like Flash, Flux with Action Script etc.) to develop the application? So, I can install on both Android and iPhone mobile platforms? Thanks in advance. Regards, Priya.

 

[hansschmucker]

Depends on what you want to develop, but web applications work very similar on both devices and you can access system APIs from there using either a system like PhoneGap or building your own lightweight environment that exposes system APIs in JS (VERY easy on Android, but no idea how well that works on the iPhone). Stay away from Flash: it works only on a few Android devices and on the iPhone not at all. Adobe Air likewise has pretty bad compatibility.

 

[QuackWare]

Your best bet is to go with some sort of web application. Although if you wan't the application to work very well with each OS your going to have to customize it to take advantage of each of Android's and iOS's strengths.

 

[redcrab]

Web base app is not the only possibility ... check out at Xamarin .this company develop tools to make easier cross device/os app development for
android / iOs(iPhone,iPad) /WindowsPhone

Xamarin bet on C# as the common shared langage between these platforms (.Net, MonoTouch, Mono for Android)

 

[alostpacket]

Depends on what you want to develop, but web applications work very similar on both devices and you can access system APIs from there using either a system like PhoneGap or building your own lightweight environment that exposes system APIs in JS (VERY easy on Android, but no idea how well that works on the iPhone). Stay away from Flash: it works only on a few Android devices and on the iPhone not at all. Adobe Air likewise has pretty bad compatibility.

Flash can compile to native iPhone app format nowadays I think

It's not all that bad, but I wouldnt put it above any of the other layers.

PhoneGap/Xamarin/Flash -- All are a layer away from Java/Obj-C which are a layer away from C++/C

Other options include Corona and Unity3D. All have different strengths and weaknesses.