I’m looking for any general information and books that will guide beginners on the subject of mobile development. For example, I primarily develop in web standards, PHP, JS and use a couple CMSs. Making the move to Objective-C is a jump although I’m familiar with basic concepts regarded classes and such.
Additionally, I’m not sure if I fully understand how or if mobile apps can be developed in HTML/CSS/JS. I’m out of the loop. My original impression was that apps for the iPhone and Android were clearly separate from the other languages I mentioned. I assumed that if you’re doing something in HTML/CSS/JS then you simply call it a website and put it online.
Can someone explain this to me and recommend any beginner books on the topic of Objective-C and iPhone development? Thanks in advance.
The Programming Team is currently putting together a Sticky thread ATM.
There is a lot you should get to know I guess, no offense intended.
If I’m correct?
Server-side code
Device support
Mark-Up design
A bit shy on Paper Books IMHO - but here’s from a very rough bunch of stuff. I’m guessing you’re more of a “fundamentals first” person, liking books. but sometimes it’s helpful to tear apart other code to see how it works
I understand mobile web design more than developing apps. This may not be the proper forum for questions on app development. What I don’t understand is the blurry area in between. I almost get the impression that some people create iPhone apps that are only HTML5/CSS and I’m confused by the nomenclature or details. Can you create in app like that and get in the app store? Developing in HTML/CSS3, etc is not necessarily an issue for me.
phonegap and appcelerator titanium will allow you to re-utilise existing web skills to produce native mobile apps that are cross platform.
I personally think that platform specific coding isn’t necessary unless you need very low level access for high performance applications like 3d games. Android phones are now outselling iphones and will continue to get even more market share, so the days of people equating a mobile app as an iphone app are on the way out. To use an analogy - would you create a website that is e.g firefox only, no ie no safari? There’s no need when you can write once and deploy to multiple platforms using a good framework.
I agree with you. This request is partly based on what I’ve been tasked to do at my job. However I think I have more clarity on developing for the iPhone. Do I have to use third party tools to leverage my existing web skills to create official apps? The goal here is to not create mobile optimized website but to create something with the appearance of an app available on the app store.
One way or another you’ll have to use a third party tool whether it’s a framework or the ios sdk.
The frameworks mentioned will create real apps, appcelerator has over 4000 apps in the store and is used by some of the biggest brands around.
This will be an important questions to many web developers within few years. As of right now, I still stand that focusing on HTML 5 for Web Mobile Application is the way to go. A lot of people assume you need to write native application for mobile devices but it’s NOT true (in most cases). Good thing about mobile browser is that they are updated quite frequently and most of HTML 5 capabilities are supported. As of right now, there is a specific JavaScript framework called Sencha Touch that focuses on writing mobile apps using HTML5/CSS/Javascript. It’s looking very very good. See this vid
Still, that does not mean Native Apps will go away! If you’re making any games or graphic intensive or hardware dependent app, then you must code in native languages. However, if you’re just making a enterprise business site like Amazon/Amex/online banking/etc… You can easily do this using HTML 5. At least this is my bet!
Oh! If you truly want your App to show on the phone then I’ll just code in native mobile language that simply launches a browser w/ specific URL. Voila~
At rare times I’ll still go there - but I treat it as “background” NOT “documentation”. I’ve learned enough over the years to know that a lot of things have chenged so I would never consider w3schools as being cutting edge.
Would I expect the .NET Mobile Tutorial to be up-to-date? Not on your life. Yet I think it still has some value as an overview as long as one doesn’t expect to copy/paste code and have it work.
Great info, for a cool topic. Mobile will definitely be a money maker in the future, still in it’s infant stages (and I don’t mean apps but actually marketing to mobile users).
T. Hill:
This following post have some relative information to develop Android Mobile application. Please read the article which may help you some way-
Except, that is a post that simply reiterates a press release about the release of a SDK for the honeycomb tablet platform. Not really relevant at all if you ask me.
