Developing App

[Zeal]

Evening Gents + Ladies,


Basically.... I'm after developing an app. Nothing fancy.

• User open up app.
• Able to view latest report in text.. only a paragraph of wording.
• See previous reports.

I've had a quick Google around, book marked some links.

As it's fairly basic - maybe some of the app developers here have a few handy links?

----
Alternatively, (whilst typing this, this came to mind).

Because it's only text. Maybe a mobile webpage may be better? Then the App can just act as a shortcut?


Ideas / thoughts?

p.s - reports = kind of like scores for a sport.

 

[JamieLewis]

Hi,

By the sounds of it I think a web page will be your best option and as you suggest an app' could then just browse that page.

When you say app, I'm presuming this to be a standard Windows application?

If so I would be happy to take this on for you, just PM me.

 

[Zeal]

.. for a phone. opps

 

[stugster]

Most phones have tinternet

 

[JamieLewis]

.. for a phone. opps

I knew you were going to say that! I actually contacted 'Gradans' earlier today on the general business forums about iPhone app's, his contact details are in the thread.

Most phones have tinternet

so true

 

[Zeal]

Most phones have tinternet

Most people can't be bothered with typing in a URL Hence the thousands of apps available + pre installed on phones already

 

[DotNetWebs]

There are a couple of things to consider here:

A dedicated app should give a better user experience than a mobile web page but a web page is (by its nature) cross platform whereas you will have to create a different app for each mobile platform you want to target (iPhone, Android) etc.

If you create an app, assuming the data isn't already available elsewhere, you are still going to have to create a server application API to power it.

Regards

Dotty

 

[stugster]

I've got a page that acts like an iPhone app. Create a shortcut on your iPhone homepage thing, it grabs the favicon, and boom. You've got a fecking amazing dynamic system.

Zeal, pm me what you need with a brief idea of the organisation info and I'll punt a test app in a dev area. Happy to do it FOC just for the pure banter.

 

[awebapart.com]

I'd second the idea of going the website route first, rather than developing an app. The problem with apps is that you have to develop differents apps (in different development environments) for the different mobile platforms, including iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, J2ME (Mobile Java) for some of the other phone operating systems, etc and that can be expensive (my company has developed J2ME games in the past).

When people start talking about apps, simple apps that can be accomodated via normal websites, instead of saying:

"An app could be developed for that"

I usually say:

"there's an app for that... it's called the mobile phone's web browser".

In your particular case, the application might be so simple that it could be accomodated by even more simple technology. For very small one paragraph text only reports, you might even be able to deliver the system via SMS text alerts, in which case:

"there's an app for that... it's called SMS".

 

[Styleloft]

Hi there,
my company develop apps for all platforms.
Things to take into account especially with Apple.
The new rules of apps submitted say that the app must offer good use of functionality.
If you are just showing somebody a text page and older text pages I think you would struggle getting it through.
You need to try and think if there is any more than a couple of paragraphs of text you can show the user?
If you need some help please drop me a PM

 

[NextPoint]

Did you know you can make web pages have app icons on the iPhone? Whatever method you decide to do this, I would say using HTML5 is the way forwards because it can be ported to any current mobile device whether it be iPhone, Android, WebOS or Blackberry.

 

[garyk]

Or you can look at a cross platform solution like appcelerator titanium or phonegap or dragonrad. The problem with webapps on devices you dont get all of the features like maps, gps, accelerometer, local file storage etc. but if you dont need them no biggy!

 

[NextPoint]

Not used the cross platform solutions before - how do they work? I'm looking forward to the new version BlitzMax, which will be cross platform.

The method I'm currently using is to mix web apps in a native wrapper, where the native wrapper contains the web app and uses Java for native only features so it can do things like system notices, etc.

 

[garyk]

Not used the cross platform solutions before - how do they work? I'm looking forward to the new version BlitzMax, which will be cross platform.

Well phonegap and appcelerator use html/css + their own apis to access phone specific features and what they do is generate a finished project but you dont have control over the build process, i.e. they deliver a finished app over the web.

I'm playing with something called Corona at the moment which you use Lua and this can compile for android and iphone too.

You mention blitz, glbasic already does iphone (not sure about android).

Theres a few others out there too, plenty of choice!

 

[awebapart.com]

I've had a look at appcelerator too. It is interesting technology but it isn't a truly cross platform method of delivering phone apps since it doesn't support the J2ME (Mobile Java) platform, the oldest and still the most prevalent app platform since it works on the lower end mass market phones too. Appcelerator is mainly used for iPhone and Android mobile phone app development at the moment. I'm not sure what the status is with supporting Blackberry or Windows Mobile, there was some talk of Blackberry, but other phone operating systems like Symbian, WebOs, Meego there isn't much talk of. Some of these other phone operating systems do support J2ME (since J2ME as a platform is cross operating system), so Symbian phones support J2ME, Blackberry phones support J2ME, the trendy lower end mass market Samsung and LG phones support J2ME, most Nokia phones including their low end mass market phones support J2ME etc.

The interesting thing with the appcelerator approach of basing development on web technology (HTML/CSS/Javascript) is that it can be used in conjunction with a normal website solution. Develop your solution for the web, so it works on a lot of phones with web browsers, then package up (wrap) the web interface in an appcelerator app for iPhone and Android to offer something else for those particular phone owners who prefer apps.

But what you are doing for simple web solutions is essentially creating a app wrapper to the phone's web browser to show a normal website. The phone has a browser and your app is mainly making use of that browser.

But for the OP's simple small text report based requirement, I still think SMS might be the most cross platform, the most cross phone solution of them all.

 

[Zeal]

Morning


SMS wouldn't be an option After brainstorming more.. it seems people would like to comment, or even start a 'diary'.

With this in mind, I'm testing out a couple of WP plugins which auto detect mobile browsers then activate a mobile theme.

I've since then shurnk the site down to just the blog (reports), contact form, and details of how to access the full site if their phone is 'good enough'.
Trial and error at present! But problem still remains: How to get this shortcut to the users phone looking like an app.


As awebapart said: Many apps are based on 'mobile java'. With this in mind, I checked out GetJar - created an app which acted as a shortcut to the website...

Works a treat - but a tad slow! Just looking into how to speed this up...


(Just checked GetJar - 45 downloads since last night )

 

[garyk]

I've had a look at appcelerator too. It is interesting technology but it isn't a truly cross platform method of delivering phone apps since it doesn't support the J2ME (Mobile Java) platform, the oldest and still the most prevalent app platform since it works on the lower end mass market phones too. Appcelerator is mainly used for iPhone and Android mobile phone app development at the moment. I'm not sure what the status is with supporting Blackberry or Windows Mobile, there was some talk of Blackberry, but other phone operating systems like Symbian, WebOs, Meego there isn't much talk of. Some of these other phone operating systems do support J2ME (since J2ME as a platform is cross operating system), so Symbian phones support J2ME, Blackberry phones support J2ME, the trendy lower end mass market Samsung and LG phones support J2ME, most Nokia phones including their low end mass market phones support J2ME etc.

No, only cross platform in that it supports android and iphone but there seems to be little out there for S60. J2ME is dated technology and pretty dire in terms of performance, I'm working alongside a couple of java dev's at the mo who also say its a pain to develop in. Android doesn't actually use j2me, you write in java but build for their specific jvm which is why oracle are getting snotty. FlexyCore have iSpectrum has done a demo of their tool targeting S60 which is primarily used to convert java apps to iphone.

The interesting thing with the appcelerator approach of basing development on web technology (HTML/CSS/Javascript) is that it can be used in conjunction with a normal website solution. Develop your solution for the web, so it works on a lot of phones with web browsers, then package up (wrap) the web interface in an appcelerator app for iPhone and Android to offer something else for those particular phone owners who prefer apps.

But what you are doing for simple web solutions is essentially creating a app wrapper to the phone's web browser to show a normal website. The phone has a browser and your app is mainly making use of that browser.

But for the OP's simple small text report based requirement, I still think SMS might be the most cross platform, the most cross phone solution of them all.

Yep and jquery touch (now sencha) does a pretty good job.

 

[awebapart.com]

SMS wouldn't be an option After brainstorming more.. it seems people would like to comment, or even start a 'diary'.

Good old feature creep!

Trial and error at present! But problem still remains: How to get this shortcut to the users phone looking like an app.

The less to type the better with phones. Short urls can help, perhaps redirecting to longer ones. In 2002 we set up a wap only site awjg.com for our game, to make it easier for phone users to type it in.

If typing is an issue for phone users, which it can be, then this raises the question of whether the phone app should be read and write (with the latest feature creep) or just read only (as in the original requirement).

I checked out GetJar - created an app

My company's old 3D J2ME game, which we developed in 2002, is still on GetJar here.

created an app which acted as a shortcut to the website...

Works a treat - but a tad slow!

I would recommend testing that on quite a few different phones, since I think that particular feature (MIDlet.platformRequest?) is a MIDP 2.0 feature rather than a MIDP 1.0 feature, and even then I wouldn't assume that it works on other MIDP 2.0 J2ME phones.

J2ME can be useful for targeting a lot of the mass market phones, but it does have its problems too, and Apple wont support it on their phones, and Android has gone for a slightly different Java standard.

 

[awebapart.com]

J2ME is dated technology and pretty dire in terms of performance

Unfortunately the J2ME standard specified no requirement for hardware of a particular capability. This means that J2ME is present on very slow cheap phones and faster more exensive phones too. We performed a benchmark several years ago when J2ME was just starting, and I would assume there is still a big difference in speed across phones, because some manufacturers want to produce phones with cheaper slower hardware to hit the low end mass market and to provide longer battery life.

This issue hasn't really raised its ugly head with iPhone apps yet, although we are seeing some apps that only work on the latest iOS operating system firmware version or do not work on first generation iPhone/iPod touch, so this issue is creeping in.

It will be more of an issue with Android, since different manufacturers will use different quality hardware, especially as more cheaper more mass market android phones arrive from various manufacturers.

Any app (or web browser) on mass market phones might also have to cope with slower network speeds if the phone doesn't support wifi or HDSPA (3G data speeds).

I'm working alongside a couple of java dev's at the mo who also say its a pain to develop in.

Yep, I'd agree with that. It can be a pain/challenge to develop in, and more specifically cross platform test with.