2010/1/15 Jolyon Smith <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jsmith@deltics.co.nz">jsmith@deltics.co.nz</a>></span><br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">But we should also remember that the free alternatives don't just mean the</div>
seemingly sub-par Apple tools, but as someone else pointed out, also Visual<br>
Studio C# Express + MonoTouch.<br>
<div><div></div><div class="h5"></div></div></blockquote></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>But it does also include Flash/Flex, where the Flex Dev environment is similar in price to Delphi Pro. Java, C# (via Mono) and Flash all compile to the iPhone so they don't use VM's, but Flash is the most seamless - it makes the experience painless and you get volumes of functionality that works as expected on the platform. The same cannot be said for C# or Java cross compilers. IMHO, you get what you pay for - the fastest (although not most native or snappy) method for getting to the iPhone is currently Flash/Flex, i.e. ActionScript. But as (I think you) say, most of the iphone apps are done by people slaving away with XCode in their garage with 1 person (and possibly a contracted designer). But Games I think are the biggest hit on the iPhone and Flash certainly makes that easy.<div>
<br></div><div>Android on the other hand runs the Dalvic runtime - Java is the language of choice that Google supports compiling to Dalvic, but it also supports others - such as <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">Python, Perl, JRuby, Lua, BeanShell, JavaScript, and shell via the ASE (say that out loud :-) As long as you compile to Dalvic you can use compiled, if you want to interpret and run your own VM, you can do that to.</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; "><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">That said, on Android you are not required to write to Dalvic - it is only there to make things easier. Last year they opened up the O/S layer and all the apis required, so it may be easier for Delphi to target that layer if it wished to. Given Android lets you multi-task, run apps in the background etc, it may be a better platform for them to choose and industry pundits see Android taking a larger share in the smartphone market than the iphone in the long term if only because of the number and variety of phones on the market (at different price points and features).</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; "><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">I didn't read through this thread entirely, but did anyone mention electronics? Delphi has always been big in the scientific/industrial world, and I have taken this up as a hobby (Arduino) and would like to write the client side apps in Delphi. With the coming of x-platform, this is even more appealing... Does anyone here use it in that area?</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; "><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">Richard</span></div>
<div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>---<br>Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor<br>Developers Inc Ltd<br>web. <a href="http://www.developers-inc.co.nz">http://www.developers-inc.co.nz</a><br>ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384<br>
skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter<br><br><br>
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