1. Cross-platform
solutions for Mobile Moldova ICT Summit 2011
App Development IT4Developers
Alexandru Catariov
19/05/2011

2. Agenda
• Introduction
• Mobile Apps Market Overview
• Mobile Apps Native Development
Overview
• Cross-platform solutions
• Conclusions
2

3. Introduction
• Popular mobile devices : Mobile Phones, PDAs, Smartphones, Tablets, Carputers, Netbooks
• Popular mobile devices features: Wi-Fi, touch screen, GPS, Camera, Sensors(Accelerometers, Compass)
• Mobile App features: GPS Location & navigation, Maps, Augmented Reality, Media Player, Social
Networks, Reminders, VOIP, Networking, Push Notification, Games and many others.
• The most popular mobile platforms: iOS(iPhone, iPod touch, iPad) , Android, Windows Mobile(Phone),
Symbian, Blackberry.
• The popularity is not geographical the same
• Big PLAYERS: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Intel, Samsung, RIM
• World Mobile Apps Market Worth US$25 Billion by 2015
IN YOUR ZONE 3

4. Market share by Mobile platforms
100%
90%
80% Other OSs
70% Windows Mobile
60%
iOS
50%
40% BlackBerry
30% Android
20%
Symbian
10%
0%
2007 2008 2009 2010
Source: Gartner
IN YOUR ZONE 4

5. Mobile App Distributions
Companies Application Stores Platforms Available Apps
Apple App Store iOS 350,000
Nokia Ovi Store Symbian, Maemo, Meego 55,000
Microsoft Windows Phone Windows Phone 7 17,500
Marketplace
Google Android Market Android 294,000
RIM BlackBerry App World BlackBerry 31,000
IN YOUR ZONE 5

6. Mobile App Categories Popularity
Top 10 Mobile Application Categories by Top-10 list of categories(excluding games) of
Mobilemix consumer mobile apps in 2012 by Gartner
1. Games 1. Location-based services (LBSs)
2. Music & entertainment 2. Social networking.
3. Social networking 3. Mobile search.
4. Mail & Messaging 4. Mobile commerce.
5. News & Current events 5. Mobile payment.
6. Weather 6. Context-aware service.
7. Sports 7. Object recognition.
8. Health & fitness 8. Mobile Instant messaging (MIM).
9. Shopping & retail 9. Mobile e-mail.
10.Books & reference 10.Mobile music/video.
IN YOUR ZONE 6

7. Mobile App Native Development
• Native development means: using native technologies, native tools, native UX, native API etc.
• The native development solutions are provided by platform owner
• All solutions have simulator tools, but usually they are very slow
• The native solutions are free
Platforms Technologies Development Tools Development Platforms
iOS Objective-C, iPhone SDK XCode IDE Mac OS X
Android Java, C/C++ Eclipse Windows, Linux
Symbian, Maemo, C++, QML, Qt framework, Qt Creator Windows, Linux, Mac
MeeGo platform SDK OS X
Windows Mobile C/C++,C#, .NET compact MS Visual Studio 2005-2010 Windows
framework
Windows Phone 7 C#, .NET, Silverlight, XNA Visual Studio 2010, Windows
Expression Blend
BlackBerry Java, Blackberry Java SDK Eclipse , Blackberry JDE Windows, Mac OS X
IN YOUR ZONE 7

8. Cross-platforms solutions arguments
• Mobile App Market shared between several popular platforms.
• Different technologies and API for each mobile platform
• Each technology requires particular skills, tools and resources for development
• For each platform the native solution requires the app to be built from scratch.
• Each native solution requires additional management, testing and maintenance
effort.
• More powerful hardware
• Similar hardware parameters: screen size, touch screen, front camera, accelerometer
• Mobile apps tend to be more independent of the hardware platforms
• Porting existing applications from other platforms: desktop, web
IN YOUR ZONE 8

9. Cross-platform solutions – native technologies
based
Platform Technologies Supported platforms License
Airplay SDK C/C++ Android, iOS, webOS, Bada, commercial licence
Symbian, Windows Mobile avalable
MoSync C, C++, Lua Windows Mobile, Symbian, Free, GPL 2.0. commer.
Android, iOS, Moblin, MeeGo licence avalable
alcheMo Java ME iPhone, Android, Windows commercial licence
Mobile avalable
Celsius Java ME Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, commercial licence
Symbian, Windows Mobile avalable
Bedrock Java ME Android, BlackBerry, BREW, commercial licence
webOS, iOS, Bada, Symbian, avalable
Windows Mobile, Windows
Phone 7
TotalCross Java ME Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Palm License per device
OS, Windows Mobile.,Symbian
Qt SDK C/C++, QML, Symbian, Maemo, MeeGo Free. Open source
IN YOUR ZONE 9

10. Cross-platform solutions – web technologies based
Platform Technologies Supported platforms License
Adobe Air HTML, JavaScript, Flex, Android, iOS, MeeGo, Free
Flash BlackBerry
PhoneGap CSS3, HTML5, JS. iOS, Android, Blackberry, free and open source
WebOS, WP7 ,Symbian under the MIT License
OpenPlug Action Script, Java iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Free & commercial
Script, XML Symbian licenses available
WorkLight HTML, CSS, JS BlackBerry, Android, iOS, Commercial licenses
available
Appcelerator Java Script, HTML, CSS Android, iOS, BlackBerry Apache 2.0 license,
Titanium comm. licenses avail.
RhoMobile HTML, CSS, JS, Ruby BlackBerry, Android, iOS, free and open source
under the MIT License
WidgetPad CSS3, HTML5, JS. iOS, Android , WebOS free and open source
IN YOUR ZONE 10

11. Adobe Air
• The Adobe® AIR® runtime enables developers to use HTML, JavaScript, Flex and Flash Builder
software to create high-performance mobile apps.
• Supported mobile platforms: Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows 7(Slate), MeeGo
• Features:
• Multi-touch, gestures, HTML5/CSS3, Local API’s (Location, Accelerometer, Microphone,
Camera, Contacts etc.), SQLite, Action Script 3 with JIT compiler and others.
• Advantages:
• Faster development, declarative UI programming, mature framework and others
• Disadvantages
• Requires AIR runtime, Prone to restriction on iOS, Troublesome handling of different
resolutions, few mobile-optimized controls
IN YOUR ZONE 11

12. Adobe Air Examples
Native iPhone App Adobe Air Android App
IN YOUR ZONE 12

13. PhoneGap
• PhoneGap is an HTML5 app platform that allows you to author native applications
with web technologies and get access to APIs and app stores.
• Supported mobile platforms: Android, iOS, Palm OS, BlackBerry, Symbian OS
• Features:
• WebKit (HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript), Local API’s (Location, Accelerometer,
Microphone, Camera, Contacts etc.), SQLite, Bridges between native
implementations and JavaScript
• Phone Gap is usually used with some touch Java Script frameworks
• Sencha touch – more mature for mobile development
• JQuery Touch – works well just for iPhone development
IN YOUR ZONE 13

14. PhoneGap Examples
IN YOUR ZONE 14

15. Appcelerator – Titanium Mobile
• Supported platforms: iOS, Android, BlackBerry(Beta)
• Uses native UI components that are controlled by Titanium JavaScript framework
• Near-native performance
• Custom Development & Deployment tool (Titanium Developer)
• Native UI is built in JavaScript only
IN YOUR ZONE 15

16. RhoMobile
• Supported platforms: iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7,
Symbian
• Fully implements MVC
• Local light-weight web server
• Ruby back-end
• HTML5/CSS3 front-end (Compiles to Ruby)
• Contains AppGenerator (create Rhodes applications, models, and tests)
• Custom Simulator
• Custom Debugger
• Enterprise solutions (RhoSync)
• Deployment server (builds app for all platforms - RhoHub)
IN YOUR ZONE 16

17. Cross-platform solutions for game development
• AirPlay SDK
• Supported mobile platforms: iOS, Android, Symbian, Bada, Windows Mobile, webOS, Maemo
• Uses C/C++ and standards IDEs such as: Visual Studio C++ and Xcode.
• Can be used for development of various rich mobile apps
• Full license costs - 2500$ per seat per year. Indie License – 100$ per seat per year.
• ShiVa Engine
• Supported mobile platforms: iOS, Android, webOS
• Uses C/C++, Lua, OpenGL, DirectX, Object-Oriented Design, Built-in Graphic Editors.
• Full license costs - 1500$. For students and researchers – 170$.
• Unity
• Supported mobile platforms: iOS, Android
• Uses C# & Java Scripts, OpenGL, DirectX, Object-Oriented Design, Built-in Graphic Editors.
• Full license costs - 1500$. Indie License - free.
IN YOUR ZONE 17

18. Conclusions
• May have performance issues
• Non pure-native look & feel
• Limited API set
• Support for integration with native API and native UI components
• Web technologies based – CSS, JS, HTML.
• For rich mobile apps and for low cost porting.
• Native technologies based – C/C++, Java ME.
• Can be used for mobile game development
• A big number of solutions
• Many of them are commercial and cost a lot, but the indie license is not so expensive.
IN YOUR ZONE 18

19. Alexandru Catariov | Deputy Head of Development Endava Moldova
Alexandru.catariov@endava.com
Tel +373 790400205 |Skype alex.catariov
thank you
IN YOUR ZONE 19