The work on B4i has already started. B4i will create native iOS applications. The language will be the same as B4A and B4J.
The APIs will be similar in some cases and different in others.
In order to develop with B4i you will need an iOS device, an Apple developer account and a Mac computer.
The B4i code will be converted to Objective C and then compiled with the regular Objective C compiler together with the libraries.
The rapid debugger will allow modifying the code without rebuilding the package making the "testing cycle" much quicker.
We are now at the first steps of the development of B4i. Many things have not yet been determined.
It is hard to estimate when v1.00 will be ready.
I'm aiming for it to be released before the end of the year...
Just an idea... if we can pre-order the software and help you in developing this, please make that option available. I am sure many of us would love to contribute and help you somehow in development.
It is too early to consider a pre-order. It will be considered in the future.
Swift doesn't provide all the features required for this solution. For example there aren't any reflection / inspection features which are required. Also note that all the iOS libraries are written in Objective C so the benefits of the simpler language will not be significant.
It is possible that in the future the underlying language will change to Swift.
well done Erel! I've started with xcode and objective C but it's to complicated for our developing method,
so will be possibile to reuse amost all the code from b4a like a multiplatform compile? (appcelerator, ......)