Comments on: Mobile Apps cross-platform development challenge: PhoneGap vs. Titanium vs. Rhodes

By: ZeuGame

ZeuGame — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:35:10 +0000

Nice Article

A team composed of pasionnated guys own the unique technology to make agnostic cross-platform games on all major existing mobile platform. this revolutionary platform component is called Zeugame and allow to build the new generation of CPMMOG (Cross Platform Massive Multiplayer Online Game)

See their tutorial application World of Bombs at http://www.zeugame.com.

By: Lee barney

Lee barney — Sat, 01 May 2010 15:24:31 +0000

If you are going to cover the leaders in the field you should also cover QuickConnect. It was the earliest framework, undergoes faster development, and has a huge number of features and users. It is free and open using the MIT license.

By: touch and go » Blog Archive » PhoneGap is kosher, says Apple — whither Titanium?

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:45:54 +0000

[...] blog entry by mobile developer SurgeWorks from a few months back outlines one of the key differences: Most [...]

By: Adam Blum

Adam Blum — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 04:19:17 +0000

Thanks for your review.

Rhodes allows plain HTML+Javascript development like all of its imitator framework (four more beyond the ones you reviewed)

But Rhodes is:
- only framework with support all devices
- only MVC (you nicely captured value of MVC and why writing an entire app in Javascript is probably not a good idea
- only ORM
- first mobile Ruby
- only hosted development environment

Rhodes 1.5 is alll about TDD and automated testing. Rhodes 2.0 will have stream multimedia support far beyond anything that exists today

By: Claude

Claude — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:58:36 +0000

OK, I read some more. To me it looks like there will be a free, open source, APL 2.0 licensed version of titanium, but that they’re selling premium subscriptions, that allow you to get your technology earlier, and support and the sort. I’m not sure this should count as a negative. Of course it’s bad if you’ll have to pay for iPad support because the free version will only have it 6 months later; on the other hand, when you pay you get support, and that’s something that could be very useful.

But we’ll have to wait until next week when the exact terms of the subscription and free services will be announced to be sure on whether the payment model is going to hold Titanium back.

By: Claude

Claude — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:05:29 +0000

> Titanium is free while it is in beta, but will become a commercial product.

I’m not sure where you got this information. As far as I can tell, it’s apache 2.0 licensed and I don’t see any indications that they will change that. Also, on http://www.appcelerator.com/ , it says Free & Open Source.

Another reason why I’m tending towards using Titanium is that it will also support desktop development. With the iPad round the corner, the difference between desktop and “formerly mobile OS”-applications will probably become less clear…

By: Mauro Dalu

Mauro Dalu — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 09:29:12 +0000

Hi Rohit,
We have no app published using PhoneGap and Titanium so far so I can’t tell you of any direct experience with Apple’s review process when using these frameworks. The first thing that comes to mind is that the post you reference is a little dated. As you see on http://phonegap.com/projects there are approved apps out there using PhoneGap.
There are a number of reason for apps rejection. Some are silly and inconsistent over time, but usually they make sense.

One could presume, with all due respect, that people using PhoneGap are trying to use it as a shortcut to success with the App Store, and in the process they just do not give the appropriated attention to Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines and to the terms every App needs to abide to in order to be approved.

Apple’s explanations often reference to these documents and sometimes it looks like these terms and guidelines can be bended to a certain degree, while some other times you get to a picky reviewer that will reject your app because you used an icon that looks like an iPhone or a word that does not please them (like “demo”… see Ivan’s post here).

We have several Rhodes projects in the pipeline and will surely keep everyone up-to-date of all the ins and outs of the approval process as we submit the first one to the App Store later this month… so stay tuned ;)

Thanks,
Mauro.

By: Rohit Aggarwal

Rohit Aggarwal — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:54:48 +0000

Hi Mauro:

Can you please comment on the acceptability of iPhone applications based on PhoneGap?

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_is_apple_rejecting_phonegap-built_iphone_apps.php

Also, do you have any information regarding this problem with Titanium or Rhomobile. I look forward to your response.

Thanks and Regards,
Rohit

By: Radu Cojocaru

Radu Cojocaru — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:59:02 +0000

Titanium has an IDE which allows you to create and run projects (you don’t need to open a terminal) and it wins from the documentations point of view (there are a lost or resources, from video to a clear list of functions in its API).

By: Brad Midgley

Brad Midgley — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:07:21 +0000

Nice summary. I see CS5 as a potentially useful tool for existing flash code bases, but it remains to be seen how this will come together.

I have not been excited with the prospect of writing entire applications in javascript. I’ve written advanced UI in the javascript-enabled cappuccino but its design helps enforce MVC separation like full cocoa development does. I haven’t seen people talk about how MVC applies to Titanium and Phonegap. It would be interesting to hear opinions. Rhomobile helps put things together in a rails-like separation of concerns.

All these platforms are new enough that automated testing hasn’t caught up. I miss this from pure rails development.