Talk done at Ideaspace Cambridge 1st March 2013 covering the choice of tools in the mobile development space. 59offers.com

1. The Mobile
Development
Landscape
Whats happening in the world of mobile?

2. Overview
• High level introduction to whats out there
• Deciding on a tool
• What you need
• Whats coming

3. What’s out there?
• Native for the main platforms - XCode
(iOS), Java (Android),Visual Studio
(Windows Mobile), Java/C++ (Blackberry)
• Cross platform using either web
technologies (HTML5 & javascript) or
scripting - Lua is a popular script language
• No code development - however, often
with royalties or monthly costs to pay

4. Native Tools
• Provide the best performance and user
experience
• Typically free as each vendor wants apps on
their platform
• Can be a steep learning curve - not easy
for non-programmers

5. Cross Platform
• Great for reaching multiple platforms with
one set of code
• Depending on your experience *can*
leverage existing skills
• Shorter learning curve if you haven’t coded
before

6. No Code Tools
• Great for non developers
• Allows you to deliver basic application or
use as basis as spec. for a developer
• Typically hosted which means you are tied
to some form of financial commitment

7. QuickTime™ and a
GIF decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
So much choice!
So much choice!

8. Deciding on a Tool
• No ‘one size fits all’
• Some tools only work on one platform or
optimised for one platform
• The ‘sort’ of app you need to create will
define your choice of tool

9. Making the choice
• Start with requirements; utility/business app
or game?
• What platforms do you need to run on?
• What skills do you already have?

10. Business App
Development
• Coder;Then go native with either XCode
or Java or worlds your oyster!
• Web Person; Appcelerator, JQuery Mobile
+ Phonegap leverage existing HTML skills
• Non Tech; Look at buzztouch, appmakr,
biznessapps or runrev

11. Game Development
• Coder; Can use native tools + framework,
e.g. XCode + Cocos2d or;
• Web Person; HTML5 game engine, LimeJS,
MelonJS, ImpactJS or learn Lua used in
Moai, Corona and Gideros
• Non Tech; Construct2 or GameSalad both
support game creation with *no* coding

12. Whats coming
• Lots of tools already available
• And more on the way
• Not all tools support *all* platforms, so is
there a solution?

13. The next big (current)
thing
HTML5

14. Why HTML5
• Truly cross-platform, all devices
• Supported on iOS, Android; Blackberry 10
and Windows Mobile 8 are HTML5 centric
• Can use JQuery Mobile for business apps
and ImpactJS (HTML5+Javascript) for
games
• Browser performance on mobile devices
only now starting to become good enough

15. Questions?
gary@59offers.com

16. Takeaway
A small european software house released 50 games
onto the app store.
They didn’t sell well and the company was close to
bankruptcy.
For game 51 they had 4 guys work on it as background
project for 9 months.
Total development cost $70,000

17. game 51 did a little better....