Basic4Iphone ???

[pablovidal]

regards,
Erel, you plan to make a Basic4Iphone???

Thanks,

Pablo Vidal

 

[aaronk]

Here are a few links that might answer your question since it has been asked before:

http://www.b4x.com/forum/forum-discussion/7478-will-there-ever-basic4iphone.html

http://www.b4x.com/forum/basic4ppc-...ftware-any-chance-basic4ios-basic4iphone.html

 

[Gearcam]

Is this the same in 2013 or is their now any better solution ?

 

[barx]

There is no basic 4 iphone, Even IF Erel decided to go for it, last I heard Apple didn't let you use 3rd party tools anyway...

 

[yttrium]

Apple permits 3rd party tools, there are plenty of them that publish officially. The issue with all of them (and B4iOS would be constrained by this too) is that you must compile on a Mac, even if you don't develop on one. Some tools like Xamarin try to get around this issue by providing a small server application for OS X that you can install to a remote machine. From there, your Windows IDE would ship the source to the OS X machine, it would compile it, and then ship it back. Sadly, this still requires an OS X machine.

If Erel would be okay with it, I (and I'm sure many other people here) would happily host a network of these kinds of OS X machines, and they could check into a master server that would distribute load.

Still probably not the best thing to do, but it's one solution.

Another major caveat is that you need to test your app, and the only way you can do that is to either run it in an emulator or a physical device (via USB cable, a la ADB, or network/WiFi, a la B4A-Bridge). Emulators only run on OS X, and the iPhone can only be tested on via a connection to a Mac. So, the emulators would need to run on an accessible remote machine running OS X (which would also serve as the build machine in this situation), or you would need to own a physical iOS device connected to a local Mac.

In the end, you will need an OS X machine locally to do this. Windows would only serve as a more friendly UI for writing direct code.

Oh, yeah, and you can only design iOS interfaces using the Interface Builder on OS X. So to do that on Windows, you'd need a new interface a la B4A's Interface designer, which would then push a correctly-written interface to OS X.

At this point, it's probably better to just use OS X and Xamarin Studio.

Note: It MIGHT be possible to have those donated server machines also host emulators and use a form of screen capture to share the emulator with a client, but it wouldn't be very responsive (though mine personally would be because my machine would have a 100mbit upload). It's very unlikely but still might be possible to trick the remote build machine into connecting to a fake USB device, and instead have that USB connection go over the internet to the client, where the real iPhone (or other iDevice) would be connected. However, this would require a separate set of drivers on each device, and they would most likely need to be written from scratch.

I might draw up some diagrams of this later.

 

[Erel]

Currently there are no plans to create an iOS solution. The issues yttrium provided are real and will make the solution much more cumbersome compared to Basic4android. There are other challenges as well.

For now I prefer to focus on Android (which is the largest market), and continue to improve Basic4android.

 

[PFlores81]

Wouldn't you be able to use a VM to compile an iOS application in a virtual environment on a Windows based machine?

Not that I care, I really despise Apple to begin with. However, if it helps out a fellow dev, I will contribute regardless of how I feel about the company.

 

[yttrium]

Wouldn't you be able to use a VM to compile an iOS application in a virtual environment on a Windows based machine?

OS X virtual machines are very hard to set up, and usually aren't very fast. That would be more of a last-ditch effort, not to mention it would be a pain to get a physical device networked correctly.

 

[Eric H]

Download VMware and find an osx appliance. They come preconfigured.

 

[imbault]

For IOS and cross platform direct IDE, Livecode is pretty fun and interesting, have a look, there is now a community free version:
http://livecode.com/

 

[bsnqt]

For IOS and cross platform direct IDE, Livecode is pretty fun and interesting, have a look, there is now a community free version:
http://livecode.com/

I am not sure if I am wrong or not, but I did make a short tour there (livecode), and it seems to me B4A is more focus and better. The more platforms you want to cover, the less features you may have. The simple task like dialling and calling using url: tel can be done easily here with Erel's code seems not to be possible in LiveCode. I don't know it is caused by the LiveCode's limitation itself or because of the experience level of the members.

See this link: http://forums.runrev.com/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=17118

 

[Eric H]

I personally don't have any experience with any other tools for mobile development, but a coworker of mine uses Corona Labs to program for Android and iOS. I have never used the Lua programming language, so I haven't checked it out yet, but at some point I do want to find a tool that I can use to make some iOS stuff. I didn't look too closely into the Livecode thing, but it seemed to me that it must have a separate runtime layer, which would limit the efficiency of the apps. Maybe not, but it seemed that way from the stuff I read about it. As far as Android goes, B4A is definitely going to be my go-to tool, even if I end up using another tool for iOS that is capable of compiling for Android. I have been using BASIC for so long that it is just more comfortable than other languages I have messed around with. Plus, the support forums here are awesome.

Eric

 

[NJDude]

Note that most of those "cross platform" products are based on HTML5 and JavaScript, basically, what you are writing are "web apps".

 

[netkomm]

There is one "real" tool that delivers native apps for Android, IOS, Win (on top of Mac and PC)

It's Embarcadero RAD Studio XE5

Anyway, said that, it's way overpriced for my budget (starting price is $1799) ... I guess I have to keep developing for Android only for now...

I feel Erel could fill the gap...

 

[wimpie3]

As much as I would LOVE to see a Basic4ios, there are indeed several problems which would make development on Windows machines uncomfortable. Having to remotely compile your project seems to be the least of the worries (after all, that's what phonegap does as well). It's the debugging process that would be very hard when you don't have a Mac.

 

[Eric H]

Those html5 apps never feel native...

 

[sorheim]

I personally don't have any experience with any other tools for mobile development, but a coworker of mine uses Corona Labs to program for Android and iOS. I have never used the Lua programming language, so I haven't checked it out yet, but at some point I do want to find a tool that I can use to make some iOS stuff. I didn't look too closely into the Livecode thing, but it seemed to me that it must have a separate runtime layer, which would limit the efficiency of the apps. Maybe not, but it seemed that way from the stuff I read about it. As far as Android goes, B4A is definitely going to be my go-to tool, even if I end up using another tool for iOS that is capable of compiling for Android. I have been using BASIC for so long that it is just more comfortable than other languages I have messed around with. Plus, the support forums here are awesome.

Eric

I started with Corona before I found b4a. The Lua programming language is interesting and the platform is quite powerful especially in its physics engine. I found the community friendly and helpful. I also had a similar experience with appcelerator. What I was turned off about had nothing to do with either product but with the annual developer fee of $99 to Apple. I am very happy with b4a. The platform, community and support are top notch.

Scott

 

[Erel]

It is true. Some tools allow you to compile in "the cloud".

Interesting chart (Google Trends):

http://www.google.com/trends/explor...,iphone+development,windows+phone+development