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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."

5 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. Launch Times? by glennrrr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well how long does it take to load the whole Mono framework runtime because every second counts on the iPhone?

    1. Re:Launch Times? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If I am not mistaken and given that Apple bans other execution environments, the last step in building is compiling to native code. So there are no JIT times, I donÂt know about other loading times.

    2. Re:Launch Times? by digitalunity · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I would be more worried about WinForms compatibility. I developed a couple of .NET applications(never again!) and running them with the Mono runtime is markedly different than MS's runtime. Stability wasn't great with Mono and controls didn't always behave the same.

      Although I won't developing any more .NET applications if I can avoid it, it would still be nice if Mono matured to the point where it could replace the MS runtime without noticeable difference.

      --
      You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
    3. Re:Launch Times? by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually, there are two large things standing in the way of that:

      1. The best .NET development tool, from what I can tell, is still going to be some form of Visual Studio.
      2. Unlike Java, .NET makes native bindings dirt simple. If you were using a DLL in C++, you can use the same DLL in C# relatively easily.

      #1 means that even if people want to target Mono, they might develop in VS.NET anyway, which is a bunch of VS.NET and Windows sales for Microsoft. #2 means that anyone who doesn't deliberately target Mono is probably going to call a bunch of native win32 code, just because it's so trivially easy to do so.

      Note that both of these exist even with a "100% compatible" Mono, unless it was also combined with a 100% compatible Wine, and we all know exactly how likely the latter is.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    4. Re:Launch Times? by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      How does this hurt Apple?

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

      I mean, you can sort of come up with a rationale, but it's really, really strained. Basically, it's not about whether it directly hurts apple, as whether it might hurt Apple, and/or whether it lets Apple give up even a tiny iota of control over their platform, and/or whether it hurts Apple's partners.

      In this case, it's probably about control. Apple is going to be very wary of any language which supports eval(), since that means my app could just download new code from the Internet and eval it, thus eliminating the middleman (bottleneck!) that is the Apple approval process for all future updates.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!