Phonegap support not good enough

Phonegap sort of sucks. When you create an app with phone gap, it's laggy, the swipe transitions are jagged, and it images don't load quite properly.

I don't think Phonegap support is an acceptable solution for cross platform. Nor do I think the Adobe flash compiler to iOS and Android is.

Why didn't Microsoft build a transcoder for WP7 and WinRT that transcodes objective C and the iOS SDK API and map methods to it's framework?

Does it really want people to spend all that time and money to rewrite iOS apps?

With a few small tens of millions of dollars in work, you could automate 80% of that. Does Microsoft want "somebody else" to do it?

"Hey, you know what?"

"somebody else gonna do it any damn way"

They won't, and if they do it's not going to be funded properly and it will be horrible. It would probably take about 10-20 million dollars to do it extremely well, and that's chump change for Microsoft.

It has it's place.

Reach vs. Rich

Don't use it then. Most apps are thin, so it is very easy to rewrite it.

@magicalclick:

Most apps are thin, so it is very easy to rewrite it.

Have you ever written an app for iOS or Android or worked on one with a team?

22 minutes ago, 01001011 wrote

Phonegap sort of sucks. When you create an app with phone gap, it's laggy, the swipe transitions are jagged, and it images don't load quite properly.

I don't think Phonegap support is an acceptable solution for cross platform. Nor do I think the Adobe flash compiler to iOS and Android is.

Why didn't Microsoft build a transcoder for WP7 and WinRT that transcodes objective C and the iOS SDK API and map methods to it's framework?

Does it really want people to spend all that time and money to rewrite iOS apps?

With a few small tens of millions of dollars in work, you could automate 80% of that. Does Microsoft want "somebody else" to do it?

"Hey, you know what?"

"somebody else gonna do it any damn way"

They won't, and if they do it's not going to be funded properly and it will be horrible. It would probably take about 10-20 million dollars to do it extremely well, and that's chump change for Microsoft.

Mono Touch seems to be well liked out there .... i guess you hate it likre you hate all things.

What am saying is very simple and super logical.

If a software company has an app that requires 2 developers: 1 for iOS and 1 for Android, and it each takes them 50 days to complete a small app, then the Windows development should be in proportion to it's market share.

So that app should take 2% of the time or 2 days for every 100 days of iOS and Android development to become economically viable. A very good transcoder/mapper could help this along.

@figuerres:

But you still have to rewrite it for Mono so that doesn't really help at all. 

I'm talking about people with native apps.

Phonegap sort of sucks. When you create an app with phone gap, it's laggy, the swipe transitions are jagged, and it images don't load quite properly.

The android browsers are, for the most part, crap. Their performance is abysmal, so bad that the jQueryMobile project, basically gave up on trying to make page transitions work. 

I don't think Phonegap support is an acceptable solution for cross platform. Nor do I think the Adobe flash compiler to iOS and Android is.

What features of phoneGap are you using? The device, notification, or camera? You might be surprised to see how much candy you can take out of your app and still have it perform it's intended purpose.

Why didn't Microsoft build a transcoder for WP7 and WinRT that transcodes objective C and the iOS SDK API and map methods to it's framework?

The iOS api is humungous, and I'm sure the problem is not a technical one, but a legal one. You can't just steal another companies API and recompile it on to your platform. A typical iOS app is mostly Apple code, with a little bit of your code gluing the parts together.

Does it really want people to spend all that time and money to rewrite iOS apps?

It's that why Microsoft is paying some of the development costs for companies porting their top iOS apps to Windows?

-Josh

@JoshRoss:

The iOS api is humungous

Which is why I said it would take at least 10-20 million to do it right.

The iOS api is humungous, and I'm sure the problem is not a technical one, but a legal one.

So why could Adobe do it for AS3 if it's so illegal. Runtimes are not allowed in iOS apps. The key difference would be the transcode direction.

A typical iOS app is mostly Apple code, with a little bit of your code gluing the parts together.

That could all be mapped. Adobe did it.

I think most app developers do want their app to work on Windows, but at no cost to them. 

I am fairly certain that its the "cost to them" part that's the major problem.

1 hour ago, 01001011 wrote

If a software company has an app that requires 2 developers: 1 for iOS and 1 for Android, and it each takes them 50 days to complete a small app, then the Windows development should be in proportion to it's market share.

Except that Windows Phone apps typically command a higher price than iOS or Android equivalents, so you need to sell a smaller number of copies to generate the same income. You also need to factor in the demographics of the userbase and what their attachment rate to apps is. Other factors like the availabilty of similar software and/or platform capabilities would also factor into matters.

52 minutes ago, 01001011 wrote

*snip*

That could all be mapped. Adobe did it.

There is a world of difference between providing a translation layer for a subset of API functionality, that need only work with a specific subset of tightly controlled applications and providing a completely generic mapping of an entire API that has to support every application regardless of whatever quirky undocumented implementation details they just happen to be relying on. If there wasn't the WINE project would have been 'complete' years ago.

@AndyC:

Except that Windows Phone apps typically command a higher price than iOS or Android equivalents

I've never seen this mentioned before and see you have provided no citation.

mapping of an entire API that has to support every application regardless of whatever quirky undocumented implementation details

I don't think any iOS developer would expect a transcoder to work on "undocumented implementation details"(was that a joke), but I did say that the 10-20M budget transcoder should do 80% of the work.

I mean there are still other costs like QA work, testing, ect... but developers cost way more than QA people, and that would help cut most of the cost since the same product specs for the other phones could be used for the Windows Phone version.

I think that on the MSFT side it would require them to suck it up and admit that they need to spend huge money on it, and that the current strategy is not going to work, so I predict that this transcoder is never made and that the current situation will persist.

Besides it would destroy poor Miguel De Icaza's business in the process as nobody would bother with MonoTouch anymore.

2 minutes ago, 01001011 wrote

@AndyC:

*snip*

I've never seen this mentioned before and see you have provided no citation.

Really? I thought the typically higher cost of WP7 apps was widely known. For example, Angry Birds on iOS is £0.69, on Android it's free (but ad supported) and £2.29 on Windows Phone 7.  

*snip*

I think that on the MSFT side it would require them to suck it up and admit that they need to spend huge money on it, and that the current strategy is not going to work, so I predict that this transcoder is never made and that the current situation will persist.

I'm not sure what benefit it would really offer Microsoft, if it was heavily used it would essentially push them into a position that Windows Phone apps would have to lag iOS ones and API usage for those apps would also be limited only to functionality provided by iOS (and would obviously lag even further as new releases of iOS came out).

Providing any sort of app portability between Metro on Windows and the Windows Phone API is a far better prospect for improving the developer interest and ROI. If the same app could run on both systems seemlessly, then the potential market for any given app could vastly outsize any other platform by a substantial amount.

@AndyC:

Angry Birds on iOS is £0.69, on Android it's free (but ad supported) and £2.29 on Windows Phone 7.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/angry-birds-hd/id364234221?mt=8

Unless it's on sale, Angry Birds HD(not ad supported) is $2.99 on iOS

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rovio.angrybirdsspaceHD

and $2.99 on the Google Play store for Android (Space is the non-Ad supported one).

I'm not sure what benefit it would really offer Microsoft, if it was heavily used it would essentially push them into a position that Windows Phone apps would have to lag iOS ones

Again, paying a full development cycle for a tiny market is not acceptable. Paying to finish an app that's 80% transcoded is more appealing.

I think we should also clarify that most iOS and Android apps do not use:

MonoTouch

Unity 3D

PhoneGap

Adobe Flash Transcoder.

16 minutes ago, 01001011 wrote

@AndyC:

*snip*

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/angry-birds-hd/id364234221?mt=8

Unless it's on sale, Angry Birds HD(not ad supported) is $2.99 on iOS

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rovio.angrybirdsspaceHD

and $2.99 on the Google Play store for Android (Space is the non-Ad supported one).

The HD version is for the iPad, not the iPhone and I was comparing like-for-like (although strictly speaking the Windows Phone version has less levels and features than both the iPhone/Android releases). Space is a new release so it's difficult to compare, as the pricing for a Windows Phone version isn't yet known. It's still cheaper though, $2.99=£1.88 and that's ignoring the fact the price has dropped on WP7 since it's original release.

Picking another popular title, Doodle Jump is £0.61 on Android/iPhone and £2.29 on WP7. Sonic 4 Episode 1 is £2.49 on iOS, £3.02 on Android and £5.49 on WP7. Plants vs Zombies, £1.99 on iOS, £1.99 on 'droid and unsurprisingly £3.99 on WP7. And that's not cherry-picking, as you can easily verify by checking the stores yourself, it's pretty much impossible to find a counter-example.

*snip*

Again, paying a full development cycle for a tiny market is not acceptable. Paying to finish an app that's 80% transcoded is more appealing.

Which is a reason for developers to possibly want it, it's not a particularly compelling reason for Microsoft (who want developers to embrace their platform, not iOS) to be the ones providing it.

@AndyC:

You're right, HD on iOS is for iPad. I never played it on the iPhone. When you talk about free versions of iOS and Android, you're talking about ad supported apps, and apps with in app purchases or you're talking about hobby apps.

I don't think it's fair to compare ad supported app prices with those which aren't ad supported.

PhoneGap is good for apps that are very close to being web apps. The official Wikipedia app is actually a PhoneGap app and I think it works great.

20 seconds ago, 01001011 wrote

@AndyC:

I don't think it's fair to compare ad supported app prices with those which aren't ad supported.

Well no, it's a whole different revenue stream approach. I thought there was a paid non-ad version of the original Angry Birds for Android, to be honest, but I can't find it now so I guess I was either mistaken or it's been dropped. One thing that is notable is that the Android marketplace does seem to have substantially more free ad-supported versions of major titles available than the other platforms, it would be interesting to know why that is.