iPhone or Android ?

[frodo_man]

Hi all,

I have 2 years experience with VC++ and C#,

I am now looking for doing some smart phone apps, but I don't know which platform is better in the future, iphone or android? Which one should I choose?

cheers

[kelcy]

i'd prefer iphone, i always liked iphone because its user friendly

[SgtMe]

I'd say it was 50-50. iPhone has a bigger/better market, but it is expensive to develop for (if you want full functionality available by using the iPhone SDK with Objective-C). Alternatively, you can use Dragonfire SDK (C++), which has limited capabilities, but you can still make great apps with it. Android is (IMO) harder to program with, but it has much cheaper development tools (many are free) and distribution is very low cost. If I had to choose though, I would take DragonfireSDK for iPhone. However, if you make successful, popular iPhone apps, what's to say you couldn't make android versions?

[peter_budo]

i'd prefer iphone, i always liked iphone because its user friendly

User friendly based on what? That is just personal opinion with no technical background at all...

@frodo_man
Choice is really yours with given background you can pick up either programming language. At the moment it would be more question of initial investment. For me downside of this is having Mac machine as their SDK is not ported to other OS and it will not run on Intel machine with Mac OS if it is not official hardware. Beside that you may want to buy iPhone since there been many complains about their emulator, unlike Android where you can happily start of just with emulator.

[adams161]

The c++ and particularly c# experience to me means you'll naturally pick up java as C# was really in many ways copied from java and the three languages share the same syntax. I don't know objective c, but I've thumbed through a book and it does not look like java or c# the code to me.

Now knowing java is not all of android. The UI (user interface) in android is it's own ball game, and me with java experience had to learn that from scratch, but if you have pure code, classes, that don't create and manage UI elements, its strictly java.

Iphone is the bigger market right now by far. selling to android means you sell to many fewer phones ( or even if not selling , there are reasons to make a program freely available, same issue exists, smaller user base).

But if you ask me about 3 years from now? well I think android is going to grow a lot more than iphone and may catch up. First quarter 2010 i recall reading more android phones were sold than iphones, with the iphone 4 i think momentum might be back with iphone, but with so many android phones and many good ones, i think momentum will shift back to android before long.

Mike

[Nick Evan]

>> User friendly based on what? That is just personal opinion with no technical background at all...

It's a signature spammer :(

[peter_budo]

>> User friendly based on what? That is just personal opinion with no technical background at all...

It's a signature spammer :(

One of the reasons for my "friendly" reply ;) . Secondly if some iPhone user or wanabe user gone tell me that "of course" you have to do iPhone development because is user friendly, then of course I will get mad on such crap. There is no proof of professional knowledge, does not have inside view of language and tools or perhaps required hardware.
You do not come to technical forum preach about something you have no knowledge or developer has no chance to change...

[ColSanders]

I'd say it was 50-50. iPhone has a bigger/better market, but it is expensive to develop for (if you want full functionality available by using the iPhone SDK with Objective-C). Alternatively, you can use Dragonfire SDK (C++), which has limited capabilities, but you can still make great apps with it. Android is (IMO) harder to program with, but it has much cheaper development tools (many are free) and distribution is very low cost. If I had to choose though, I would take DragonfireSDK for iPhone. However, if you make successful, popular iPhone apps, what's to say you couldn't make android versions?

Unfortunately DragonFire SDK is not Apple software and as so it would violate Apple's ToS. This means anything you write in it may be limited to only jail broken iPhones which is a MUCH smaller market.

[abhimanipal]

In the simulator of iPhone you cannot use most of the hardware features like accelerometer, location, camera,etc
Besides this the timing and performance results that you get out of a simulator will be very different from that of a real device.

So if you want to develop apps for iPhone it is recommended that you buy a macbook as well as iPhone.

Secondly Objective C is very different from C/C++ . Not only in terms of syntax but also the programming paradigm

[SgtMe]

Actually ColSanders, I did NOT write that, so don't quote me for it ;) The reason I say this is because YOU CAN DISTRIBUTE THE APPS ON THE APP STORE. IT IS LEGAL! You send them your C++ code, and an automated piece of software runs it through some program, and then through the iPhone SDK, so the app is (technically) legally built. You then have the correct file type for your app. Then, you can either sign up to the app store and distribute it there (costs), or you can publish through zimusoft. If you take the Zimusoft route, all that happens is that you get free distribution in exchange for them having the developer name. It's all legal, and you build native apps.
Should have done some research... ;)

[jamesadition1]

Hi
The newest iPhone comes out in two weeks; the Android OS continues to deploy on better and better hardware; and both operating systems roll out exciting new features and innovations with each release. So which deserves your hard-earned cash?

[Master Rattley]

iPhone or Android?? Obviously you would choose the iPhone, due to the fact that, in DBZ Androids are evil and try to kill people. Haven't you people watched Terminator!! Golly gosh iPhone all the way.