Check Out iPhone Dev Camp, Coming in August
There's a ton of buzz growing about the iPhone Software Developer Kit (SDK), and the army of cool apps that are going to be unleashed onto the iPhone via a vibrant developer community to-be.
This is going to be a hot topic at Apple's upcoming Worldwide Developer's Conference in June, (which, if you're going, don't forget to come to the VMware Fusion user's meetup!), with lots of current mobile developers wanting to learn about how they can ply their trade on the red hot platform that is the iPhone and iPod touch.
Of course, a platform lives and dies by its developers, and having a strong community around that platform only helps. iPhone DevCamp, the first of which was held in July 2007, is blazing this trail.
iPhone DevCamp 2 is being held August 1st, 2nd, and 3rd at Adobe's offices in San Francisco. If you're a mobile developer, and are interested in checking it out, shoot on over to their site.
The DevCamp is run on the BarCamp model of community participation, and is financed mainly through sponsors. Speaking of which....
Cross-Platform Development for Mobile Coders!
The VMware Fusion team is a proud sponsor of the iPhone DevCamp. Historically, the tools for the most popular mobile development platforms, like Sun's J2ME, Symbian, Qualcomm's BREW, and .NET Compact and PocketPC for Windows Mobile, have been Windows-focused.
That is, the software development kits, and other tools that developers need to do development for these platforms have mainly been available only for Windows. The iPhone SDK, of course, requires the developer to be running Mac OS X. What's a mobile developer to do?
For anyone looking to get into iPhone development, it's going to mean a Mac. And if that developer wants to continue his other development with Windows-based tools...there's no better way to do cross-platform mobile development than with VMware Fusion on a shiny new Mac. You can see why we're so happy to be sponsoring the DevCamp! If it has to do with multiple OSes running on a Mac, we want to be there!
So check out the DevCamp. It should be a great time!
This appears to be a fairly contrived and Apple-fanboy-esque article to all intents and purposes. The Symbian and J2ME tools have mostly been platform independent rather than windows focused, and though the .NET side always starts on Windows, Microsoft also supports the Mono (and Moonlight, etc.) projects to add support beyond windows (unlike Apple's approach to external development and support).
The fact that Apple ties people into a poorly chosen/designed SDK and a more unusual and unpopular language is a negative trait that should be lambasted.
You haven't given any easy options for windows users to do development with the SDK, so you need to review what the point of this article really is. It appears to fan Apple's "marketing & design over function & compatibility" rather than to help any prospective developers! Apple has enough people selling their flakey (though pretty) wares, without others supporting it without a shred of reasoning!
Apple would have a ton more content if they simply allowed Adobe to release an iPhone flash module, but this would remove their 30% of everything business model. Apple won't write decent apps themselves to lead the game (as microsoft does) because they take a cut of all alternatives and so don't care.
In fact the best way to do cross-platform mobile development is to have each device, as it always has been, and at present it appears that Unity is one of the best options for common language, multiple target platforms, etc. Otherwise sticking to HTML + some iPhone specific branching or markup would often be best.
To do robust RIM (blackberry) and Windows Mobile development tools the Mac is awful without VMWare to run windows tools.
Please realise the truth and recommend the windows machine rather than selling gullible people on overpriced macs! Linux is a better base system for those wanting a cheap system, and windows is better for those wanting complete flexibility. Macs are for those who follow design over both price and flexibility!
Posted by: James Burton | May 15, 2009 at 09:14 AM