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iPhone Gets .Net App Development

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the next-comes-drag-and-drop-development dept.

snydeq writes "Novell has announced MonoTouch 1.0, a commercial SDK that allows developers to build iPhone apps using Microsoft's .Net Framework instead of the Apple-designated C or Objective-C languages. The SDK leverages Novell's Mono runtime for running Windows apps on non-Windows systems, allowing developers to utilize code and libraries written for .Net and programming languages like C#. With MonoTouch, the Mono runtime provides such developer services as garbage collection, thread management, type safety, and Web services, said Mono leader Miguel de Icaza."

7 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Launch Times? by Gwala · · Score: 5, Informative

    Probably not too bad - my guess would be it's using the AOT version of Mono, which compiles the framework into the final application, resulting in much better load times in performance-critical environments (see http://www.mono-project.com/AOT )

    --
    #!/bin/csh cat $0
  2. Unity by tylersoze · · Score: 4, Informative

    Unity, www.unity3d.com, which uses Mono, has been available on the iPhone for some now.

  3. No it doesn't. by Plug · · Score: 4, Informative

    MonoTouch is not a runtime or an "app", it's a library with which you compile your own apps. It's ahead-of-time compiled, so you end up with a binary that runs on the iPhone.

    It opens up iPhone development for millions of .NET developers, many of which may not have any interest in Objective C. And as far as I can tell, C#/Mono is garbage collected, and Objective C (on the iPhone) is not. That alone would make me interested in checking it out.

    If you're not interested, that's great, move along.

  4. Re:Launch Times? by Cyberax · · Score: 5, Informative

    Java has quite nice bindings to C++ now in form of JNA ( https://jna.dev.java.net/ ), it's actually about as powerful as .NET interop.

    Of course, managed C++ is even better still.

  5. Re:Must be app-store approved... by Plug · · Score: 5, Informative
    1. It's not a "shell" or a "runtime", it is ahead-of-time compiled down to native code.
    2. This is a wrapper around native Apple UI objects, it's not using any Windows or .NET UI objects. You use the Apple Interface Builder just like you would if you were using Objective C.
  6. Re:Why CLR (.NET mono) and not JVM (Java)? by ClosedSource · · Score: 4, Informative

    "MS fooled a generation of 20 and 30 somethings into buying its code books and learning how to code in their walled garden."

    Well, it was a much bigger garden than Apple's and the gardeners were well paid.

    "Once touched by MS you are not used to learning any new skills"

    Whatever you think of Windows, it could hardly be argued that developing for it didn't require learning "any new skills" (C, Win32,C++, MFC, COM, ATL, COM+, SQL Server, ASP, .NET framework, C#, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, DirectX, WCF, WPF, WWF, LINQ ...)

  7. Re:Launch Times? by EastCoastSurfer · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't know, how does Google Voice hurt Apple?

    It hurts ATT and thus hurts Apple. The reason for the Google Voice rejection became clear when ATT announced their 'a-list' program to start on the 20th of this month. As long as you have a plan costing $59+ (most iphone plans) you can put 5 numbers on your a-list that will not count against your minutes. Add the Google Voice number to your a-list and boom, unlimited talk time.