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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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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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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.
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 $99 to join App Hub just to be able to put your own app on your own Windows Phone 7 or Xbox 360 device?!?
It's easier to remember this stuff, when you recall that what actually happened was that NeXT acquired Apple for a negative four hundred million dollars ($US -400 million).
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
What is Symbian?
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."
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