Category: Mobile development
A London-based research firm called VisionMobile has released a new method of tracking "openness" among mobile platforms called the Open Governance Index. According to its metrics, Android is the least "open" of all the supposedly open source mobile platforms, with a 23% openness rating. Eclipse, an open development platform comprise of extensible networks and tools, was rated the most open at 84%.Continue
Appcelerator & IDC's new mobile developer survey is out now, with details on a wide range of development trends including platform choice, developers' future plans and mobile industry challenges. Notably, the companies have now added HTML5 as a new option to rank among mobile development platforms, and its middle-of-road showing indicates that mobile websites are increasingly a complementary requirement for today's mobile developers.Continue
According to data recently released by online job board Freelancer.com, Android jobs are on pace to eclipse iPhone jobs by the end of 2012. Despite what the company describes as "solid growth" in iPhone jobs - they're up 9% from Q1 to Q2 this year - Android jobs have increased by 20%. If this same growth rate continues, there will be more Android work available by the end of the year, says Freelancer.
Another area also seeing massive growth is HTML5, which saw a 34% increase during the same time period.Continue
The iPad isn't just a hot new consumer device, it's also an increasingly popular tool for business. Each week we take a look at the new or updated business apps for the iPad, and highlight trends in how tablets are being used in the enterprise.
This week we take a look at how the Veterans Administration is planning to roll out iPads, the Khan Academy's open source iPad app and more.
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Analytics firm Flurry has analyzed trends on its network of 45,000 companies and 90,000 apps to determine where developers are investing their R&D budgets this year. In a comparison of Q1 2011 and Q2 2011, you can see that the Android project starts have dropped from 36% to 28% while those on iOS have picked up.
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Today, cloud platform provider Appcelerator is expanding beyond mobile and Web with a new offering designed for developers looking to build cross-platform applications. Now, in addition to building for smartphones, tablets and the mobile Web, developers can use the new Titanium Studio to build, test and deploy to desktop platforms including Windows, Mac and Linux as well as build HTML5 Web applications, all in one single development environment.Continue
Blackberry has released a “refresh” of its Facebook for BlackBerry v2.0 beta app that improves the app’s integration with Blackberry’s native contacts, phone, and SMS apps; adds some new feature to chat and profiles; and makes it compatible with the outdated BlackBerry Device Software v5.0.
These enhancements underscore Facebook’s increasing role as an aggregator of contact information that augments one’s own phonebook.
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LiveCode, an alternative tool for developing mobile apps designed for those who don't want to use Objective-C, C++ or Java, has now extended its development environment from iOS to now include Android. This platform lets developers create apps using one code base for multiple platforms, including mobile, desktop and Web, while still taking advantage of OS-specific features.Continue
HTML5 has been seen as a silver bullet for developers building rich, cross-platform sites for desktops, smartphones and tablets. Tablet in particular have generated much excitement by offering fast processors, large screens and WebKit-based browsers.
But how does the rendering on tablets really standup? Sencha, which sells mobile development tools, has tested HTML5 rendering on the iPad 2, Xoom, Galaxy Tab and PlayBook to see how each one measures up.Continue
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