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Best Platform For Hobbyist Mobile Development?

Posted by kdawson on from the joy-of-programming dept.

An anonymous reader notes a blog entry, possibly his own, comparing and evaluating 8 mobile platforms from the point of view of their suitability for a hobbyist programmer. Covered are iPhone, Java ME, Windows Mobile, Linux, Palm, Brew, Symbian, and Blackberry. The writer seems open-minded and is a strong fan of free software, but he gives the edge to Windows Mobile for this class of developer.

6 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Badly written by strags · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This piece reads more like a stream-of-consciousness than a carefully prepared technical article - maybe it's not meant to be considered as such. The author doesn't event attempt to justify a number of his assertions - in fact most of them seem to be based on some kind of vague "feeling" rather than concrete data or research.

    1. Re:Badly written by S3D · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, I did develop for Symbian and he is mostly correct. Certification and signing is nightmare. Even if developer is not using any capabilities and can self-sign application it still present some problems, due to poor documentation - some not quite necessary API call included by mistake can prevent application from installation. If any non-trivial capabilities are used freeware development (outside of promotional demo for big companies) becoming practically impossible. Signing freeware application can take months. Or freeware application could be ignored by test house without any explanations at all. There will be some changes soon. Free developer certificates to be abolished soon. Only TC Center certificates (cost 200 euro per year) will be accepted, valid only for like 100 phones, and process of getting them is not fast anyway.

    2. Re:Badly written by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      From my experience you are 100% correct.

      I have tried all the platforms. Palm based treos are decent if you use CASL to write for them. it's fast enough for management to be happy and powerful enough for the typical programmer. but it sometimes causes problems and connectivity out the cellular connection can be a PITA.

      windows smartphone 5 after getting past the C# strangeness is actually quite nice to write for. and releasing for a new phone is as easy as a compile. the current software I write for the company on the phones we are about to roll out (deploying the samsung blackjack to all field employees and throwing away the blackberries.) allows full job tracking and other task management easily. all phone report back to a central server management has a complete up to minute picture as to where all projects are at and the employees love the fact that they do not have to do any paperwork anymore.

      I suggested the Linux phone offering on openMoko but it's hardware and software is still early beta and not ready for company wide use. right now the dirt cheap WM5 smartphones are the best solution for rapid deployment of mobile applications for a company.

      and I hate to say it but Microsoft seemed to got this one right. which does suprise me. they dropped the ball on all the other ones. AutoPC and the others (windows CE) sucked HARD.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  2. Mostly useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not only is it not well written, many of the platforms are there just for show, as he knows nothing about them.

    Examples:

    iPhone

    It's not clear he's developed for it. He spends his time whining about the closed SDK, which is valid enough, but could have simply said "Apple doesn't welcome outside developers currently". And left it off.

    Blackberry

    I can just quote him

    "Next comes the blackberry, I have no idea about this as a programming platform so cannot say much about the SDK support."

    Brew

    And here:

    Brew as a platform is great but its not a platform for a hobbyist programmer. The tools are "supposed to be good. I have never directly worked on a brew project so cannot say much about it."

    Linux

    (goes off boring us about his dislike of GPL (fine, but out of place). And then finally gets to the matter

    (His JavaME and Windows Mobile coverage is decentish)

  3. What is this garbage doing on the front page? by JanusFury · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This article contains less information than you'd get from 5 minutes of google searches on the names of the various technologies. Why reward such haphazardly written articles with frontpage coverage and ad impressions?

    The author's few actual opinions about technologies are equally worthless; his rambling about Palm and J2ME makes it clear that he's never actually used the technology for more than a few minutes, and the ranting about Linux's license and the hassle of 'signing' applications makes you wonder if he's ever written any software at all. Someone who considers the Java Mobile API 'beyond him' probably shouldn't be writing articles about programming.

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    using namespace slashdot;
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  4. Re:Strong fan of free software??? by p0tat03 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I dunno. I have some peers who won't touch FOSS with a ten foot pole, but at the same time feel very insulted having to PAY for their proprietary software. There do exist people who like their software free as in beer, but no free as in speech. Odd, I know.