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Developers: MS Hopes To Lure iOS Apps With API Mapping Tool
Microsoft isn't standing idly by while Appple's app store fills with software; fysdt writes "A newly-announced service called the iOS to Windows Phone 7 API mapping tool acts as an interchange for developers to take applications they've already written for Apple's platform, and figure out ways to get the code work with Microsoft's standards."
...is lowering your own.
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... Microsoft will be unstopppable.
is that you have to (AFAIK) buy a Mac to develop for it. I can't really fault Apple on this as it's a great business strategy, but I simply can't be bothered so I'll only make apps for Android, which doesn't require me to buy hardware.
If Microsoft wants their phone to succeed, they need to make sure that their SDK is available on as many platforms as possible.
Summation 2
WP7 is a charm for developers.
Except those developers who already have a library of application logic code written in standard C++ or Objective-C. On Mac OS X and iOS, a front-end written in Objective-C can link to application logic written in standard C++, and Android provides NDK to allow using standard C++ application logic with a Java front end. (It might be possible to use ObjC on Android through GCC or Clang, but I haven't heard about it.) But WP7, like Xbox Live Indie Games, can use only verifiably type-safe code. Microsoft's C++/CLI is a language that includes both Standard C++ and a C++-like verifiably type-safe language as subsets, but Windows Phone 7 will reject any assembly that uses unverifiable operations, such as any use of the Standard C++ syntax for pointers or references. So how does one translate Standard C++ into the verifiably type-safe subset (/clr:safe) of C++/CLI, other than doing it manually line-by-line and then trying to maintain two versions in parallel?
Microsoft and Apple have switched positions. You have GOT to know how much this stings executives at Microsoft and pisses off MS shareholders. MS has already blown that chance at corporate with their phone OS by fucking over the 6.x using companies.
Until 7, it was an easy migration path for corps and simple to upgrade phones for users. Now there is no upgrade path, so the door is open to choose another platform. No other platform than iOS offers businesses the control and abilities they need with a standard hardware interconnect for custom applications. Vertical markets are choosing iOS.
Their only chance really was the consumer market and they fucked that opportunity with the Zune and Kin fiascos.
"I don't want more choice, I just want nicer things!"
-Jennifer Saunders as Edina Monsoon
Sounds like Microsoft development in a nutshell.
The answer you're looking for is "its progeny", which is the much-loved Cocoa toolkit. I was speaking of the OpenStep initiative itself, which consisted of a rebranded NextStep (which was also ported to x86) and API compatibility layers for NT and Solaris, neither of which exactly passed into legend.
One thing that's not often remembered is that the OS X kernel and APIs ran on x86 since Steve brought NeXT back to Apple with him. (Rhapsody and later OpenDarwin.) The rush for the big switch wasn't nearly as large as is often assumed, as Apple was quite prepared for it.
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"On the other hand, having to deal with Objective-C to code for IOS is a pain."
GC on iOS would be nice. OTOH, the NARC and autorelease rules are pretty straightforward, and in practice it's fairly hard to screw them up. OC isn't as simple as JavaScript, but then again, it's not the hell-on-earth that is C++ with STL and user-overloaded everything. Love the delegate system, and the dynamic selector mechanisms are pretty cool.
The Cocoa Touch frameworks are powerful, much better than Android's, and there are a lot of frameworks like MFMailComposeViewController and MPMoviePlayerViewController that do a ton of work for you with a very few lines of code. Love the new UISwipeGestureRecognizers. As you can see, Cocoa is pretty verbose, but Xcode's autocompletion tools knock it down to a manageable level. Tight integration with the LLVM compiler.
All in all, it's a pretty good language, especially considering that it was created about 30 years ago. Objective-C is based on SmallTalk, which is too bad, 'cause I think using a full-blown SmallTalk system for iOS development would have been a blast.
Besides, learning a new language opens your mind a little, exposes you to knew ideas, stirs the creative juices, and all that... (grin)
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Blackberry's? Sorry, but corporate clients are abandoning the ship en masse. Market share is dropping and US sales in particular are tanking. The Storm line was il-received, and the Playbook is half-baked. Android app integration is going to kill QNX, just as Windows app integration put the final nail into OS/2.
RIM is about to undergo a major implosion.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
And I wont get into all the added hoops that Apple development entails - like paying $99 to join the Developer Network just to be able to put your own app on your own device?!?
No, $99 is if you wish to publish your apps to iTunes. It costs you nothing to develop on your own device. I think to publish to Windows Marketplace is about the same price.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The real tragedy was the sheer short sightedness of the executive team. Windows Mobile went unchanged for 5 straight years. That management thought some hex-grid icon chooser thing would fix things was just mind bogglingly stupid. Kin just has the be mentioned and not explained. Even WP7 is having issues, but its chief problems are that it launched 2 years later than would be optimal, and Microsoft severely underestimating the complexity of updates. In truth, everything else looks pretty ok. It has a solid developer toolset, growing library of games and apps, and actual buy-in internally and from third parties.
It's going to be a real hard slog for Microsoft to gain big market share. But the antitrust shackles are coming off, and co-marketing opportunities with Windows 8 might give WP7 a badly needed boost.
Developing for anything Apple is more expensive than any other platform.
False. Developing for Nintendo handhelds is more expensive than developing for Apple handhelds. For one thing, just to be considered, you have to have a dedicated secure office separate from your home and a previous commercial title on another platform (according to warioworld.com). I'd look up information about developing for Sony handhelds, but http://www.tpr.scea.com/ has been down for three weeks.
And I wont get into all the added hoops that Apple development entails - like paying $99 to join the Developer Network just to be able to put your own app on your own device?!?
And I wont get into all the added hoops that Microsoft development entails - like paying $99 to join App Hub just to be able to put your own app on your own Windows Phone 7 or Xbox 360 device?!?
Well you need a Mac to publish to the crApp Store, so the cost of developing for iOS is already high.
MonoTouch is more expensive than a Mac. Here are all the costs that I've identified, which quickly (in my opinion) become prohibitive for a hobbyist.
And this doesn't include the price of phone service (a Windows Phone 7 device isn't sold as a PDA, unlike iPod touch and Archos 43, or even as a prepaid phone).
Um, I believe you still need to fork over the $99 to be able to get the executables onto your iDevice [as it still have to be signed by Apple to run] unless you jailbreak your iDevice.
You only get to run your app in an emulator on your Mac for free.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
You can still download v3.x for free [after signing up for a free developers account], which includes the emulator.
As well as just installing XCode from the DVD included with your Mac (and/or Snow Leopard Installer DVD). I'm not sure if it is still being included with the most recently released Mac's, but it's been included on the DVD's for years.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
So let's see, what's the API to pop up the Apple App Store on Windows 7 phones? xD
It's easier to remember this stuff, when you recall that what actually happened was that NeXT acquired Apple for a negative four hundred million dollars ($US -400 million).
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
SOX compliance.
Xcode4 contains so many new significant features and changes that if Apple gave it for free, they'd have to restate their revenue numbers (because they've already recognized the "revenue" for Xcode 3.x in the cost of a Snow Leopard).
XCode 3.x is still free because there's no new features.
Apple's recognizes revenue for most of their products at the time of purchase. For the iPhone, they split it over 2 years. Microsoft recognizes revenue for all their sales over 3 years or so.
The problem with Objective-C is that it has all the conciseness and execution speed of Smalltalk combined with all the ease of use and memory safety of C. ~
Who in his "right" mind in 1976 could have thought that "personal" computers that came prebuilt and output to a TV set instead to 7 segment LED display in hex code could have an use for common people, aside Jobs?
Steve wozniak.
Steve jobs has always been a business man, not an engineer, the engineers are the ones who make the nice gadgets, the businessmen do marketing, make requests of the engineers like marketing do, and take care of finances.
What is Symbian?
I still cannot fathom how every company in the world is capable of giving you updates to a product you got from them for free without attracting SEC investigators and IRS auditors out the wazoo. Every company in the world, that is, except Apple. Unless... here's the most likely reason... the "SOX compliance" issue is a load of bullshit.
Just as a reminder, here's a nonexhaustive list of companies who can give you updates to products from them for free:
Sony
Microsoft
Nintendo
Dell
HP
Samsung
HTC
Google
And now here's an exhaustive list of companies that have to charge you "for SOX compliance reasons":
Apple
Unless there's a section of SOX that starts off with "If you are Apple Incorporated..." then this excuse is crap.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
That's all well and good, but with Symbian what are you developing for?
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
It is, of course, also one of the most epic displays of grassroots community bait-and-switch in history: let volunteers spend years fixing and perfecting the port of OpenDarwin to x86, then kill the community when its code starts facilitating Hackintoshes. Classic Jobsian ill will: "if you haven't paid me in the last eighteen to twenty-four months, I owe you nothing."
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!