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Novell Bringing .Net Developers To Apple iPad
GMGruman writes "Paul Krill reports that Apple's new iPad could be easier to write apps for, thanks to Novell's MonoTouch development platform, which helps .Net developers create code for the iPad and fully comply with Apple's licensing requirements — without having to use Apple's preferred Objective-C. This news falls on the footsteps of news that Citrix will release an iPad app that lets users run Windows sessions on the iPad. These two developments bolster an argument that the iPad could eventually displace the netbook."
Ok, yeah, I know a lot of /.-ers won't be happy about Mono. But Mono is free, and you get to target the iPhone/iPad without owning a Mac. Macs are unaffordable for a lot of folk, and this should give open-source projects a way into the App Store*. (The other non-Apple alternative is Adobe's Creative Suite and that costs big $$$.)
*Yeah, they still have to pony up $99 to Apple to join the dev programme. But at least that's a one-time cost and could be sponsored by any OSS-supporting person/organization.
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If anybody on this planet has had time to play with an iPad, it's Steve Jobs. Seeing him fumble the device and make repeated typing errors during a public presentation does not inspire my confidence about its utility.
I think you are very much wrong about multi-tasking and I think you can ask any iphone user and verify this. First of all the typical
joe user could give a shit less. I am a developer and I am perfectly happy that the iphone and even the ipad has no multi-tasking. Sure
it would be nice to have. However I realize that not having it keeps my device from turning to shit because I loaded someone's craplication that thinks
it is cool to burn my battery life by running a worthless notifier, spam downloader etc.
Got Code?
For example, people insisted background processing was needed to handle incoming e-mail or other daemon tasks for apps. But the vast majority of those needs (though definitiely not all) are now served much better by the push notification deamon that apple implemented. See background processing was just one way to solve that problem that you were used.
This makes no sense. How is a daemon not background processing?
Anyway, the issue is not that the iPad lacks multitasking capability, rather that it imposes constraints on it.
You did not need it and you are now better off without it.
Gee, and here I was thinking that it was devices that needed to cater to my requirements, when really it's the other way round. However did we ever get on without people like you?
This is why other devices that don't get what's being created here are going to fail.
And what exactly IS being created here? A device whose main selling point (direct from the CEO, no less) is the "phenomonal" ability to view a single web page, and is overall unspecialised, less functional and costs more than competing devices? Yep, sounds like a sure-fire market success to me...
You know, that's an excellent point. Remember all the uproar, including from Apple fans, when Windows proposed its three app limit?
Yet when it's Apple, "multitasking" is simply something that isn't needed, or even, that it's better to only run one app at once, because that will apparently make it easier which is apparently what people want.
Microsoft should release a special "Apple user" edition with a one app limit (as well as lots of other features removed, and of course you can only run an app with Microsoft's permission), let's see how well that sells.