jba blog » mobile

Rosetta stone of mobile development for WP7, iOS, Android

jba — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 23:57:34 +0000

Cool link with a side-by-side comparison of WP7, iOS, and Android development features and classes from a mono (C#) perspective.

iOS WP7 Android

“View” XIB (Interface Builder) Xaml axml

UIViewController PhoneApplicationPage (codebehind) Activity

n/a (UIAutoResizing) StackPanel LinearLayout

UITableView ListBox ListView

UITableViewCell ListBox.ItemTemplate n/a (any view)

UITableViewSource n/a (binding, IEnumerable) BaseAdapter

Navigation “Controller” NavigationController. PushViewController() NavigationService. Navigate() StartActivity()

n/a (object) Xaml Uri Intent.SetClass()

n/a (object properties) Xaml Uri querystring params Intent.PutExtra() .AddFlags()

n/a (object properties) NavigationContext .QueryString .TryGetValue() Intent .GetXXXExtra()

Threading InvokeOnMainThread Dispatcher.BeginInvoke RunOnUiThread

“Model” C# .NET objects – shared thanks to Mono on iOS & Android. Also WebClient, Linq, Generics, Xml, Serialization, etc…

	iOS	WP7	Android
“View”	XIB (Interface Builder)	Xaml	axml
	UIViewController	PhoneApplicationPage (codebehind)	Activity
	n/a (UIAutoResizing)	StackPanel	LinearLayout
	UITableView	ListBox	ListView
	UITableViewCell	ListBox.ItemTemplate	n/a (any view)
	UITableViewSource	n/a (binding, IEnumerable)	BaseAdapter
Navigation “Controller”	NavigationController. PushViewController()	NavigationService. Navigate()	StartActivity()
	n/a (object)	Xaml Uri	Intent.SetClass()
	n/a (object properties)	Xaml Uri querystring params	Intent.PutExtra() .AddFlags()
	n/a (object properties)	NavigationContext .QueryString .TryGetValue()	Intent .GetXXXExtra()
Threading	InvokeOnMainThread	Dispatcher.BeginInvoke	RunOnUiThread
“Model”	C# .NET objects – shared thanks to Mono on iOS & Android. Also `WebClient`, `Linq`, `Generics`, `Xml`, `Serialization`, etc…

And while we are on the mono subject, they just released a Mono droid update, which means they now have comprahensive tool chains for C# development for the following systems, iOS (including app store), Mac (including app store), Android (including app store).

A HIG (Human Interface Guideline) for Android development?

jba — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 01:55:46 +0000

Found over on mobilecrunch, Mutual Mobile have have put out what their impression of a HIG doc for Android should be: Android Design Guidelines.

Nokia selling QT

jba — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 02:58:40 +0000

Fresh on the heals of deciding to use Windows Phone 7 as their mobile OS going forward, it seems Nokia has sold off QT.

Interesting days in the mobile world.

IE9 for WP7 has hardware acceleration

jba — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 23:21:18 +0000

Lots of mobile news over at MWC at the moment. Found this interesting video showing of Windows Phone 7′s Internet Explorer 9 Mobile with hardware acceleration. Next to a non hardware-accelerated iPhone 4 browsing experience the difference is very dramatic.

Stumbled upon phonegap

jba — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 03:28:13 +0000

So someone at work sent me this link to phonegap today.

So these guys have taken the general idea that anyone in mobile development for the past 3 years has had and made it a reality on top of an open-source stack.

Write an app using web technologies (html/js), abstract away the specific device peripherals and capabilities and then compile it down to native format for each target device.

Sucks that it doesn’t do Windows Phone 7, but still worth a look at for me as it covers off some short term Android and IOS needs.

8Pen software keyboard for android

jba — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:18:06 +0000

From over on mobile-crunch.

Looks like a cool approach to the input method. I know swype was well worth the overhead of learning, so suspect this may well be worth it as well.

Crossplatform mobile dev with Mono

jba — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:41:22 +0000

Cool post over on Chris Hardy’s blog talking about a non-trivial twitter app on winphone 7, iphone and android with the mono toolset.

Stick with the preso, the last few slides have the best info about cross platform dev and limitations, and the videos at the actual post are quite cool.

WP7, Droid, iPhone, Oh my!

View more presentations from Chris Hardy.

New Windows Phone 7 Campaign

jba — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:55:08 +0000

This has been doing the rounds on the inter-webs today. It’s an interesting take, and a cool campaign, but I think I agree with the guys over at mobilecrunch. While I’m guilty of having my face down far more than I should, especially around my kids, I think it’s actually because I enjoy it, not because the present phone UI metaphore is too clunky (not that it isn’t clunky though).

Many a Sci-Fi writer has a decent take on this phenomenon in the future with their stories of massively wireless interconnected minds and the way people stare off into nowhere with absent eyes when they are busy communicating.

C# for the iPhone

jba — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:14:04 +0000

Awesome post from an Aussie no less which is a non-trivial iPhone application using c# on monotouch.

The thing I love about monotouch is that it lets me leverage my .Net Skills (not just c#, but how the .Net run time works) and marries it to the low-level iPhone development infrastructure. The hardest part about getting into iPhone development for me was Objective-C, and now I don’t need to go there.

Points to note:

Obviously since interpretation is not allowed on the iPhone the guys at the mono project had to put together monotouch, which statically links the parts of the .net framework needed into each iPhone app.
Monotouch is a payed for product.

Monotouch for iPhone goes 1.0

jba — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:10:32 +0000

According to miggie, Monotouch for iPhone goes 1.0.

This enables you to use a static version of .Net (actual mono) with native C# bindings of the iPhone API, so no Compact Framework concepts for iPhone just yet. I agree with this decision, since people developing for the iPhone want their apps to look like they were developed for the iPhone.