Linked by David Adams on Mon 1st Aug 2011 17:24 UTC
"Recently, we released the Android version of Meridian, our platform for building location-based apps. We didn't use one of these 'Cross Platform!' tools like Titanium. We wrote it, from scratch, in Java, like you do in Android [...] So, we rolled up our sleeves, downloaded the Android SDK, and got to work."
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Member since:2010-10-29
I agree, but I cannot shake the feeling that the article is a bit too negative in tone about Android, when if you look at the content it comes out a lot better than iOS.
I mean, for the author Eclipse apparently was a bit of a hassle while he already felt comfortable in Xcode, so obviously that all depends on what you're used to.
The Android emulator is slow, that's true, but not only can you launch an Android app on a real phone quite fast, it's also much easier than on iOS because you don't have to deal with certificates and stuff before you are even allowed to run your app on a real device.
Finally his negative point about Android's XML layouts:
It’s a bit like HTML, except it’s not HTML.
You should try opening an iOS xib file in a text editor for fun sometime. It's also XML, only completely human unreadable.
Anyway, as you can probably tell I vastly prefer Android development.
And I too got started with iOS as my first mobile platform (although not my first programming experience). Edited 2011-08-01 20:23 UTC
Member since:2008-08-19
I agree, but I cannot shake the feeling that the article is a bit too negative in tone about Android, when if you look at the content it comes out a lot better than iOS.
I mean, for the author Eclipse apparently was a bit of a hassle while he already felt comfortable in Xcode, so obviously that all depends on what you're used to.
I mean, for the author Eclipse apparently was a bit of a hassle while he already felt comfortable in Xcode, so obviously that all depends on what you're used to.
Only to be expected. If you're already experienced in one platform (e.g iOS / Xcode / ObjectiveC), that's always going to shape how you think about a different platform.
No matter how much you try (and the author *has* done pretty well), it's impossible to be completely unbiased, and I'm sure an experienced Android developer would have similar reactions going the other way...
Member since:2006-05-30
You should try opening an iOS xib file in a text editor for fun sometime. It's also XML, only completely human unreadable.
It's extremely rare for an iOS developer to need to do that. The code is created by a machine. Why should it be required to be human readable? Besides - if you open it in a competent XML editor and apply formatting, it validates and can be made to look much more friendly.
The only time I ever opened a XIB was when trying to debug a plug-in that was attempting to read the XML and create source code definitions for controls (.Net MObjC plug-in - the code is in the MonoDevelop git repo I believe, or at least the original MonoTouch plug-in code is.)
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Member since:
2007-07-25
I found this comparison quite good as it did not seem to favor neither platform.