I have found that a Mac Mini is the perfect development platform. Sure it costs money, but any serious developer/techie knows thats what this profession costs. My main reasoning is very simple.
I can develop for OSX, Windows, Linux, BSD, iPhone, Android, Megoo, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7 all for one investment of $599. Since the Mac can run any OS my options are unlimited.
As far as other costs: It costs nothing to develop and deploy a HTML/JS/CSS application for All platforms. Android and iOS have the same abilities for web apps. It costs nothing to develop for Android. It only costs to have your app listed in Android Market (Was $25 now i think it is $100). You do not need your app in Android Market to distribute it. It costs nothing to develop for iPhone. It only costs to distribute your apps directly to users, and release into the Apple App store. ($99) Neither platform restricts your ability to run your software on your hardware. The only restrictions are for distribution to 3rd party users.
As far as App stores go. Sure it "Looks" like Apple only controls the App Store because "they want to control everything". Seriously though, what it takes to publish an app on the App Store is very important to mobile users.
Apple checks for: Known Malware Battery Usage (To maintain a good mobile experience to Apple's own customers) Performance Quality Excessive problems Feature completeness
These are all standards a Mobile developer should hold himself to already. So do good work, you won't have any issues. Your users also won't have any issues. If corporations and individuals could enforce these same rules on themselves I'm sure Apple would be more than happy to give up the work load of having to QA every app before release. However, the "free" as in do whatever you want Android Market has shown that WE the developers aren't ready for such responsibility.
Apple's App store QA might not be perfect, but at least they care enough to try and protect people that have invested in their products.
Tom
On Nov 17, 2011, at 7:53 AM, Kelsay, Brian - OCIO-ITS, Kansas City, MO wrote:
Well, you will always have the expense of a computer to develop on and usually for the tools, but I believe there is a free dev kit SDK for Android that is multi-platform. As far as the cost to post to the App Store or Android Market, $100 for an acct is a pretty low barrier to entry and it is a barrier to spammer scum. Albeit a low barrier, but a barrier non-the-less and I believe that a person has to prove who they are somehow. I find that the cost, the proving who you are and the rating system keeps most of the troll jackasses out of the game.
If we just had a SEAL team to hunt down virus and malware programmers… Hey, I can dream, can’t I?
Brian Kelsay
From: On Behalf Of Jack Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 12:20 AM To: Richard Allen; kclug@kclug.org Subject: Re: KCLUG Digest, Vol 87, Issue 4
Yes, that was my original feeling, when doing my own searching.
Well, I guess our final project will be an Android game App. Seems to be a bit more open and Free as in freedom and beer, although I'm sure there's a cost there to deploy also.
Can't say, I'm not surprised that an Apple solution would be excruciating from the outside. releasing an app could always be done the Hackintosh way, but there's still all that pain just getting there.
With Android and my "course", he'll learn a little: Linux, HTML5, CSS, javascript, Java, and some Android development. Along with math and physics and such.
A bit better rounded. Still, there's that huge closed, pay to play, market. Who knows, Android may be the shot in the arm FOSS needs to build a really huge base.
Thanks everyone, your comments, as always are enlightening and useful.
Jack _______________________________________________ KCLUG mailing list KCLUG@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug