My team and I were just starting to get the evaluation version of AirPlay SDK up and running when their pricing structure changed dramatically, along with changing their name to Marmalade. I don't think we can afford them at this time since we just purchased a MacBook Pro and still need to pay for the Apple Developer Program and local business licensing fees.
Can you point me in the direction of any other inexpensive 3rd-party SDKs that might provide similar features? Right now, we don't care so much about compiling for other platforms - I feel like when we are ready for that we will also be ready to license Marmalade or some other SDK. I am aware of GameSalad, but I do come from a programming background and am also aware of cocos2D but was hoping for the option of 3D graphics libraries.
Depending on your 3D requirements, I would recommend cocos2d because there is an additional library in fairly early development called cocos3d, which as you'd expect, adds 3d capability to cocos2d.
May be Shiva3d http://www.stonetrip.com/.
Perhaps they will change the price because they cooperated with airplay.
Related
Let's assume I want to develop an isometric 2D mobile-game such as Clash of Clans for example.
My main target would be iOS but of course Android would be nice, too (but not a must-have).
Now I have to decide to either program with Apples XCode (therefore Swift as a language, which I am already pretty familiar with), or develop my game with Unity3D (and therefore C# as a language, which I am also pretty familiar with).
Personally, I don't prefer one over the other.
So much for the set-up.
As I don't have any preferences, I'd like to choose the one that offers the most benefits for my 2.5D game to me.
The questions:
Is there a difference in getting an approval for the App-Store if you program in Swift, or use Unity; C#?
How big is the difference of the published package-size of the app between Unity and XCode?
Does my Unity-written app run as smoothly as my XCode-written app?
I hope you could help me with that.
If I missed some points there, feel free to criticize me and give me your opinions on it.
Greetings
Chriz
Is there a difference in getting an approval for the App-Store if you program in Swift, or use Unity; C#?
No, given this general comparison - there should be nothing here favoring or disallowing one over the other.
How big is the difference of the published package-size of the app between Unity and Xcode?
That is very hard to say. There will be added libraries for Unity inclusion whereas Apple would already have shared libraries apart of the OS - used by every app. Think shared libraries here - only Apple is permitted to do this. Not to be confused with the to be newly released iOS 9 'App Thinning'.
The larger weight will be media/images/bitmaps.
Does my Unity-written app run as smoothly as my XCode-written app?
Since they both end up using OpenGL, the end result should be the same or very similar. Obviously as the OS and device mature - if Unity doesn't leverage it, they could end up giving up performance advantages.
But... the flip side of being so tightly coupled with Swift/iOS/Apple, is you abandon your Android market - and if you are even considering it - I'd suggest Unity based on what you shared if there is a remote possibility you want to deploy to Android, desktops, *TV devices in the future.
I am absolutely new to Mobile App Development and was looking for an appropriate platform to start off with. I came across a project where people are looking to implement self-help advertising for a switch and home automation company into a mobile app. They want an iPhone App initially but also want to deploy on Android and other platforms subsequently. A similar app is this one.
After investing a fair amount of time in researching about various SDKs and Developer Programs, Marmalade caught my attention with it's multi-platform deployment feature. However after going through a few tutorials, of which I found these quite helpful, I observed that more often than not the tutorials concern Game Development. So, I was wondering if Marmalade is a more appropriate platform for Game Development and if I am looking to develop a general application I should perhaps consider a native SDK?
Marmalade is great for games: among the games that use Marmalade are Cut the Rope, Plants vs Zombies, Call of Duty: Black Ops, etc
But for general apps you should better use some other tool at least till their Marmalade 6.0. They have native UI support but it's still in development and you may miss some features.
Look at Titanium: http://www.appcelerator.com/showcase/applications-showcase/
I always prefer to use native language for the app development due to easily available help and tutorial for them. You can find lot's of help and tutorial, guidelines, books etc. for Android or Objective C development, but their are very few tutorials on Marmalade.
Marmalade is a great engine for any game developer, but for a non-gaming app, I'd not recommend it, since you'll never need to use the extra features which are it's USP.
I am developing a Netflix application for BlackBerry mobile devices. I need to make a decision as to the minimum OS version that I should develop for - depending on which I choose will have some design impacts (such as what browser field classes I can use, etc.)
What it comes down to is..should I support anything lower than OS 5.0?
I would say 4.5 and newer. see also:
OS - What market share do each of the BlackBerry models have?
OS - Which BlackBerry OS version to target for?
OS - What is the best practise in blackberry for reaching the widest range of smart phones?
I think there a few things to consider. First off, you need to have a clear vision of what you are hoping to achieve - features/functionality. Then evaluate the various API revisions, and determine which API level will provide the facilities needed to achieve your goals. Depending on the outcome of this, you may have to revise your goals. Maybe even consider using a lower API version, rolling out with a reduced feature set to help get your foot into the market, then in parallel be working on the full bells and whistles release utilizing a higher API version. But most importantly, you need to evaluate your market. The question becomes: "Does your target API provide you will enough of a potential market for your app?" But sometimes it becomes a difficult juggle, especially if you embrace the concept of "Build it and they will come" and you develop your app for the bleeding edge - waiting for the masses to arrive. You need to be sure to have the coverage in place (ie. financial, and political if you are in a large corporate environment) to survive until the day arrives. If you haven't already, you may want to look into becoming a Blackberry Alliance member. Also, don't be afraid to engage the major carriers in your market and push them a bit. They should be able to give you a bit of visibility into handset/platform penetration. Evaluate all of the variables both technical and business plan, and document it - the answer will come to you. Hope this helps.
RIM have created an official page with statistics that help you figure out the answer to this question: http://us.blackberry.com/developers/choosingtargetos.jsp
For example, as of November 2010, OS 5.0+ made up less than 50% of the market share of all active Blackberry devices, but OS 5.0+ accounts for 75% of free app downloads and 86% of paid app downloads from App World.
ON the basis of API similarities and supports i can divide os range like this
(A).<4.2
(B). 4.2< and <5.0
(c). 5.0
We deploy to 4.3, 4.7, and 5.0 with our app and that covers almost every in-market device being used today. There may be a few people still running 4.2 but not many.
I know you can write applications for the Zune, but what about the Zune HD?
Answer:
http://coolthingoftheday.blogspot.com/2009/09/xna-game-studio-31-zune-extensions.html
yes. And, while XNA targets gaming, normal apps are usually less complex, so IMHO there's nothing that says you won't be able to deliver normal apps as well as games that target the HD.
Mine's already shipped.
After much research on Google I have determined that the Zune HD is likely, but not officially confirmed, to have support for XNA. If it does have support for XNA, you will be able to create apps for it, although those apps will likely be games as XNA is primarily a game development framework.
UPDATE: XNA Studios just added Zine HD support. So yes, you can at least make games for Zune HD as well as any other app you can make with XNA.
Doesn't sound like it -- see here:
Zune HD will indeed be getting
applications, but at this time
Microsoft is planning to keep the
development in-house. In those
situations where they do want to work
with a third-party developer, it will
be a close relationship with the
Redmond,WA-based software giant. In
other words, you won’t be seeing the
wild west frontier mentality that we
have seen grow up around the iPhone,
iPod Touch, Google Android and the
Palm webOS. At this time there will
be no independent software development
kit (SDK), although Microsoft does not
rule that out for down the road a
ways.
...and also here.
Ever heard of OpenZDK?
"That’s about to change. Through the work of myself as well as Netrix, Nurta, and the rest of the ZuneBoards Development Front, all Zune models, including the Zune HD, have been hacked. The first true hack available for the Zune, this makes it possible to, for the first time, run applications directly on top of the Zune firmware, with full access to everything XNA withheld before. The limitations of XNA are now no limitations at all." (from Zune Boards: http://www.zuneboards.com/?p=vB50442)
The OpenZDK wiki: http://zunedevwiki.org/wiki/
Personal experience: I have used XNA games on the Zune HD along with the Zune 30...works great!
It's gotta be free. It's hobby, after all, not a business!. Creating for-profit software isn't an issue, but anything that requires a hardware mod is out.
Nope, I don't think so. The only other .NET environment for consoles I know costs money and is called unity3d: http://unity3d.com/
I think it supports the iPhone and the Wii and uses Mono as runtime environment. 200 bucks and you are in :)
No, all of the major consoles, except for the Xbox 360, do not have open development environments. There are various homebrew kits you can get, but these aren't sanctioned by the console makers (Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft), so at best, you'll only be able to give away ROMs of what you make for free. If you try to sell anything, you'll get sued into the ground.
As Adam said, homebrew is pretty much the only way to do what it sounds like you want to do. A lot of times, using homebrew kits also involves modifying the console in some manner.
There is a Linux-based portable game device called the GP2X that might interest you, but I think that open source game development (or at least game development using open source tools) is more of a PC thing.
If you are a student at an accredited university, you can get a free 12-month trial subscription to the XNA Creator's Club through the Dreamspark site.
Free and official? No. And XNA isn't free in the respect that you have to pay $99 to use it on the 360.
You're pretty much limited to hacked, homebrew development, coupled with hardware modification. There's at least one console out there where the hardware modification is not required but I'm not sure if we can talk about it.
On a historical note, Sony released something in Japan called Yarouze on the PSX which had a similar situation to the XNA Creators Club on the 360 (paid kit, only for hobbyists) but it never came to the USA.
Not as widely documented and supported as XNA, but here are some libraries with documentation/wiki's for the handheld consoles.
GameBoy Advance: HAM
Nintendo DS: PAlib, devkitPro (the basis for pretty much all homebrew on the DS)
You may still be able to find a "PS2 Linux" kit available - but the games you make there will only run on other instances of PS2 Linux - a limited audience.
It depends what you classifies as a console. The iPod Touch and the iPhone has got the iPhone SDK with which it should be possible to develop quite good games and when you're done they can easily be distributed through App Store either fer free or for a price of which you will be given 70%.
as bhinks mentioned, there's the GP2X, but has been around for a bit, and there's a huge community of homebrew game developers for it. the GP2X has now ceased production, and it has 2 successors on the way, the WIZ by the same company, Game Park and the Pandora which is a proper enthusiast device.
the beauty is you can do games in SDL and build for all devices, including the PC
Just pay your $200 for the Unity3D indie license and you can create games for Pc, Mac, the browser, iPhone and Wii. It's arguably a more powerful enigne than XNA because it has built-in collision detection, physics etc