Third party solutions to making mobile apps

Author: Liam Campbell

This is a quick look at the more popular third-party programs
and frameworks for making mobile apps (mostly iPhone and iPad).

PHONEGAP

Of all the ways to make apps, PhoneGap is one of the easiest,
especially if you already have a web developer skill set and
want to deploy cross-platform. PhoneGap is supported by Nitobi,
is free and open source and apps are built with HTML, CSS and
Javascript with APIs that access specific features of a mobile
device, including geolocation, accel er ometer and vibration.

The documentation is improving and PhoneGap has an active google
group. It works well with JQuery, JQTouch, iUi and Sencha Touch,
too.

'Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and Javascript' written by
Jonathan Stark is a great book to get started with. It has a
chapter on PhoneGap and Jonathan's writing style and examples
are straight forward and easy to follow. You can see a sample
chapter here. He also recently released an Android version of
the book available from O'Reilly Media.

It can be a little confusing to get PhoneGap downloaded and
installed for some users, but it's definitely worth taking the
time to install it properly as an Xcode template file. Just
follow the Getting Started Guides.

Devices: iPhone, iPad, Android, Palm, Symbian and Blackberry.

Pricing: Free and open source.

Support: A wiki and google group and tutorials are available.

SENCHA TOUCH

A relatively new product from the developers of Ext JS, Sencha
Touch builds upon JQTouch and adds in a custom library of icons
and graphics with resolution independence. Apps are built with
HTM5L, CSS3 and JS libraries, including great animations and
custom themes using SASS. It currently outputs to iPhone, iPad
and Android. You can include audio and video, and use local
storage for offline data.

ST projects are deployed to mobile devices using PhoneGap.

Devices: iPhone, iPad and Android.

Pricing: $99 for the most basic license with no support, $379
for a basic license and standard support, $1795 for a 5-user
license and Premium support. Support packages can also be
purchased separately. Support works on a ticketing system with
credits.

Support: Documentation and example projects are included in the
download and help is also available via the Sencha forums,
tutorials, Sencha blog and with the support packages.

APPCELERATOR

With 1000+ APIs, Appcel erator from Titanium is gaining in
popularity. Titanium Mobile apps can be built with HTML, CSS,
Javascript, Python, Ruby, and PHP and easily packaged and
deployed to iPhone, iPad and Android from the Titanium Developer
desktop application.

Pricing: The Community license of Appcel erator is free and open
source with premium support, additional training and
pre-releases available to Profes sional ($199/month) and
Enterprise ($699/month) users.

Devices: iPhone, iPad and Android.

Support: Documentation, developer centre, community forum,
google group, tutorials and examples are available via the
website (although some of the tutorials are only available to
paid users).

CORONA

No your favourite beer hasn't branched out into mobile
frameworks... yet! Corona from Ansca Mobile claims to be the
easiest way for Flash designers to start making iPhone apps
(well at least before the Flash exporter for iPhone). The guys
who created it used to work at Adobe and it uses the Lua
scripting language, the same one that World of Warcraft is
written in.

Pricing: 30 day free trial. $99 for a one year membership. The
sign up fee currently includes the Corona SDK and Corona Game
Edition (which is in beta).

Devices: iPhone, iPad and Android.

Support: Documentation includes 500+ APIs, tutorials, sample
code, reference portal and community forums.

RHOMOBILE

rhoMobile is a Ruby-based solution to making apps utilising web
skills. They claim to be 'the only smartphone app framework
which has support for all smart phones'. RhoHub is a hosted
devel opment envir onment that is built on top of Rhodes and
RhoSync. Apps are written in HTML and Ruby via a web browser.

Pricing: According to their website, Rhodes is 'Free and open
sourced under the MIT License. Those companies requiring
commercial grade support can purchase a Commercial License for
$1,000′.

Devices: The Rhodes framework supports devel opment for iPhone,
Windows Mobile, Blackberry OS, Symbian, Android and BlackBerry.

Support: Documentation, tutorials, wiki and google group are
available. Commercial grade support includes access to
Rhomobile's automated helpdesk management system.

MONOTOUCH

This one is for C# and .net programmers with bindings to native
APIs. You can adapt your existing .net code for mobile projects.

Pricing: Licenses are sold on a yearly subscription model. $399
for personal, $999 for organ isations and $3999 for a 5
developer license.

Devices: iPhone and iPad

Support: Documentation, forums, tutorials and wiki are available
on the website.

GAMESALAD

GameSalad claims to be 'Game creation for the rest of us'. True
to this, it is a basic game creation tool that is easy to learn
for those without a programming background. You can output to
iPhone or iPad, but doesn't currently support Universal apps and
you have to build iPhone and iPad apps separately. Some users
will find it limited - and it is still in beta - but is a great
way to create basic 2D games and the community is very helpful
and supportive.

Devices: iPhone or iPad.

Pricing: Like many of these third party solutions, GameSalad is
free to download and only costs once you want to deploy your
game to iPhone or iPad. The The basic Express license is $99.
Pro pricing is quite a jump at $1999 and it's advantages include
the ability to remove the initial GameSalad loading graphic, iAd
support, direct customer support and in-Game URL forwarding.
Most users opt for the basic license.

Support: GameSalad has an active community forum, a growing
reference library, some video and text tutorials, a blog and
sample projects that users can adapt. Pro licensed users can
obtain direct support from GameSalad.

UNITY 3D

A profes sional and extensive package, Unity 3D is a complex and
full-featured game devel觔pment tool that now offers export to
iPhone, iPad and Android plug-ins.

Pricing: Currently offering an early adopter discount for mobile
devs, Unity Pro costs $1200 with add-ons for Android Pro
($1500), iPhone Basic ($300) and iPhone Pro ($1200). The base
Unity program is free. iPhone Pro advantages include plug-in
support for Obj-C, video support and the ability to remove the
Unity loading graphic.

Devices: iPhone, iPad and Android.

Support: As you would expect, Unity 3D has an extensive library
of tutorials and supporting documentation, resources and
community.

IPHONE WAX

Wax is a Lua framework for building iPhone apps, although its
current status is unclear.

Devices: iPhone

Support: Google group.

ADOBE FLASH

After Apple's recent announcement, it appears that Adobe's
Packager for iPhone feature for CS5 will again be a solution for
Flash developers wanting to port their projects to the iPhone.

* * *

COCOS2D

Cocos2D is another game creation tool for the iPhone and iPad.
While like GameSalad, it's still in beta, it differs in that it
is a cocoa-based library for Objective-C.

Pricing: Free, but users are encouraged to donate to keep the
project going.

Devices: iPhone and iPad

Support: A wiki, blog, forum and programming guide is available.

* * *

The following are objective-C add-ons or libraries.

THREE20

An open source iPhone devel opment library for iOS Obj-C devs,
Three20 is best known for its use in the Facebook iPhone app.

From the website: 'If you're building a native app that talks to
web APIs or accesses images from the web, then Three20 will
undoubtedly save you a lot of time. If you're not doing any of
that, then you'll probably still find a lot of code within
Three20 that you'll find useful. And heck, it's all licensed
under the Apache 2.0 license anyway. Pick and choose at your
pleasure.'

SENSIBLE COCOA

Sensible TableView is another cocoa library to streamline Obj-C
development.

Pricing: Sensible TableView is offered at an intro ductory price
of $30 for a single developer license.

Devices: iPhone and iPad

Support: Full source code, documentation, samples and forum. 90
day standard support package with basic license.

DR TOUCH'S PARTS STORE

Oliver Drobnik offers Objective-C code components for sale from
his website. Prices are reasonable (50-250 EUR).

Oliver discusses his project and links to other similar services
in a blog post here.

* * *

I doubt this is an exhaustive list, so if you know of any other
third-party frameworks for making iPhone or iPad apps, or any
corrections to what is posted here, please visit the original
post here:

www.tootable.com/third-party-solutions-to-making-mobile-apps/

Disclaimer: this information was current at the time of posting.
Obviously, the pricing and features referred to will change.
This is intended as a guide only.

About the author:
I make mobile apps.