Hints for iphone / android projects

Suggestions on mobile applications from Rick 2011-4-13
A small request to people doing iphone / android / mobile app development: Please consider long term maintainability when making architectural choices such as languages and platforms.

As tempting as it is to reach for the native language of development for each smartphone (e.g. Obj C for iphone, android sdk etc) doing so is often unnecessary. There are cross-platform development kits that allow you to write an application once in a common language and then build into a platform specific target on demand.

The drawback of course is the limitation on how much of the phone's hardware is available via the common language, but the current coverage of tools like PhoneGap is enough to make cross-platform the default choice, only deviating when a required feature is not on the list.

PhoneGap feature compatibility list: http://www.phonegap.com/features

Suggested approach: Where possible consider building with HTML5, since we can then pick up non-phone browsers with a little styling only.

Excellent O'reilly book about development for iphone using cross platform approaches: https://wiki.molecular.com/w/upload/f/ff/Oreilly.Building.iPhone.Apps.with.HTML.CSS.and.JavaScript.Jan.2010.pdf