When will we finally see some progress on iOS?

Maybe I’m wrong (hope so) but somehow I’m feeling that iOS doesn’t get that much attention as other platforms have. Eg. there aren’t that much iOS topics in this forum and not much has been added to iOS by Xojo in the last 12 months or so.

I even read somewhere here in this forum that Xojo is fine with letting users build their own declares for the time being. I personally prefer to only use “official” build-in controls and iOS classes.

I really hope that 2016 will bring much more iOS …

XOJO for iOS is very immature/anmeic (my opinion, as is everything else in this response)
It is lacking any “official” support for many standard iOS controls.
It does not support various features for iOS 8/9 (such as launchscreen.xib, still requireing launch images)

It is not a matter of “letting”, as this is a good thing… to me the “bad” thing is it is currently more the rule than the exception. There are a couple of very talented developers that are doing a good job to fill the “void”, but again… that void is way larger than it should be… especially for a $300 product. Personally, they should be giving away this version, and not imposing a license fee until it reaches a much more complete level… .After all, SWIFT IS free, and while it isn’t perfect, it is eons beyond XOJO for iOS

Again… the above is MY Opinion, and may or may not agree with those opinions expressed by anyone else.

The following is also my personal opinion and of course subjecting it to different views and opinions.

I have tried Xojo iOS and have given it a good enough check doing up a project I started in SWIFT to see what I can do with Xojo iOS. In the end, I have to agree that SWIFT is a better choice.

I too agree that $299 is too high for what it can only offer now, missing quite a lot of basics. While I won’t say to make it free, making it a $99 product since it is single platform anyway - just like Xojo Desktop single platform will be more palatable.

Let’s consider what was delivered in 2015.

IOS : A much demanded new platform. As with any version 1, support for this platform suffers from immaturity.
64 bit support: An absolute must for Linux developers, pretty much a must for Web developers. One has to agree that this was a pretty much must have. Also a version 1, it suffers from immaturity. A number of issues force Xojo to bill 64 bit as beta.

Any rational analysis of the situation will lead the observer to speculate that 2016 R1 and probably R2 will mostly be stabilisation and maturity releases for the newly delivered functionality. That should include improvements on IOS, and perhaps a 64-bit IDE (which would signal also much more maturity for the 64-bit solution)

A lot was delivered in 2015. Tremendous amounts of new capabilities and functionality (I voluntarily omitted Raspberry Pi, as it is a pleasant “side effect” of other mainstream development). As end users of the product, we always want more and better. That is normal, and in all fairness, to be expected considering the price of the licence. That said, a rational analysis of the state of Xojo leads to understand that much was delivered, not much more could be reasonably expected in 2015. 2016 is an other story…

Who loves well, chastises well.

There has been amazing accomplishments this year indeed. But that is not a reason for Xojo to rest on their laurels.

My personal regret is that the lack of controls was largely compensated by the presence of dtPlugins, proof that one competent programmer was able to do more than a full team.

Now that dtPlugins are gone, we are back to square one. I did suggest that Xojo buys dtPlugins so we get the collection of controls in the product, but am not naive enough to believe that it is possible. The “not invented here” runs high enough to prevent any such possibility.

I love too much Xojo to abandon the idea that Xojo iOS should be much, much more advanced than an infant product. I struggled quite a bit on during beta and a couple months afterward with beaucoup declares and wrapping, to have it deliver an app that takes a couple weeks at most to do in Desktop.

In the present state, it is just a promising thing that requires tons of declare band aids for production. Somehow, it defeats the purpose of a Xojo RAD. If I want to indulge in handcrafted system calls, I might as well go Swift :confused:

It’s true that a new product/platform needs time to grow. But in the last 12 months it hasn’t grow at all or else very slightly.

It’s nice that Xojo has made progress with other things, but as my only license is for iOS I personally only care for iOS. Until now I regret my decision to buy it.

If 2016R1, or else 2016R2, would bring quite a number of new controls and/or other additions, then I won’t complain now. The big problem is that I’m not sure that that will happen. If I’m really honest, then I think not.

I really like the people of Xojo, the community, the IDE and especially the language (“BASIC-like”). I don’t quite like Swift/Xcode, but I must decide to go for something that has progress. Something I can rely on.

This is BS at best and conjecture at worst
I asked Jean Paul about this & he suggested he had other buyers interested and was pursuing those avenues first
I’ve not heard anything further

[quote=243566:@Norman Palardy]Pure & simpele this is BS at best and conjecture at worst
I asked Jean Paul about this & he suggested he had other buyers interested and was pursuing those avenues first
I’ve not heard anything further[/quote]

BS or not, bizarre behavior on Jean-Paul side or not (human brains are way more difficult to debug), fact remains iOS in its present state can hardly be used for production the same way as Desktop or Web. It remains a largely hackish task to have it do certain things that are very basic in Swift or other tools.

Once again, I am not throwing baby with the bath water. I am just stating that at 12 months, it should stop wearing diapers.

From an end-user perspective, it appears that iOS work largely halted when Joe S’s contract was up. I accept that a mountain of work has gone on in Xojo, generally, over the last year and my non-existent hat is off to the team. Seriously, such a small team, such a lot of work. But from an end-user’s perspective, new RAD features for iOS appeared to almost stall after 1.0.

The BS I’m referring to is [quote=243562:@Michel Bujardet]The “not invented here” runs high enough to prevent any such possibility.[/quote]
You have NO basis on which to make any such comment except pure conjecture about how we add things to the frameworks & product

Available hours, expertise, and competing priorities conspiring

[quote=243589:@Norman Palardy]The BS I’m referring to is
You have NO basis on which to make any such comment except pure conjecture about how we add things to the frameworks & product[/quote]

Oh, I touched a nerve… Sorry. Then WHY is Xojo iOS in such state of hibernation when third party tools are so vibrant ?

Understand that criticism has no other origins than true enthusiasm for Xojo and real disappointment about the present state of Xojo iOS. I truly wish I could compare favorably Xojo to its competition and say “look how rich, how complete it is”. Unfortunately, we all know that is far from being the case.

No nerve
You inject your personal assumptions as if they are FACT when you have no special knowledge
We have from time to time adopted third party items and rolled them into the product
There are several in day to day use in fact

Glad to learn the possibility that Xojo acquires technology exists. It is not very apparent, though.

My question stands. How come after one full year the state of Xojo iOS is so dismal ?

Frankly, I am sorry to recognize that if I need to create new software for iOS, I will NOT use Xojo, but rather look into another maker of a Basic RAD that has been around for about the same amount of time, but has all I need, and keeps growing.

There are limits, even for die hard fans of Xojo like me.

There is no reality, there is only perception

and perception is colored by available information

I’m a hobbyist, writing code for fun, not for sale. I’ve written about 6 Mac apps over the years using Xojo and really like the product. I’m letting my Mac license lapse because I don’t currently have a need for it and the new pricing model hurts.

I’ve been working on an iOS app without using any declares, but I’m getting to the point where I will probably have to include a few. I suspect Xojo will add functionality in the future where I will want to remove these and add the native code. Trying to avoid too much of that.

I haven’t bitten the bullet and bought a license yet, just using the IOS Simulator until my app is complete. That’s because I agree that the license price is eye-wateringly high for what you currently get, and I’m hoping for more functionality and/or a better license price.

It seems to me that Norm’s time is better spent developing new features and fixing bugs than answering our constant flow of “constructive criticism”.

So, how about we end it here? Given the multiple threads that already have covered the topic, I would expect that the message already reached destination.

[quote=243609:@Louis Desjardins]It seems to me that Norm’s time is better spent developing new features and fixing bugs than answering our constant flow of “constructive criticism”.

So, how about we end it here? Given the multiple threads that already have covered the topic, I would expect that the message already reached destination.[/quote]
A fair point, Louis maketh.

I haven’t touched iOS yet, so I can’t contribute. But reading this thread, what I have understood is that there were dtPlugins that is no longer offered. Maybe Christian, Björn, or other would like to get the rights and continue developing and supporting at reasonable rates?? I know R4 introduced finally CGFloat, that should make making 3rd party iOS tools easier. Addon Market guys, addon market for xojo. If dtPlugins were re-offered, will this thread problem be fixed?

Now back to code… :slight_smile:

I was just thinking about this today. The loss of dtPlugins is keenly felt by this Xojo iOS developer, that’s for certain. The main problem solved by dtPlugins is the replacement of the severely underpowered (and I’m being kind) Xojo iOSTable. If Xojo could do just one thing in iOS, I think it should be to make a fully-featured iOSTable. There are of course many other gaps plugged by dtPlugins - such as gestures, keyboard events, etc, that Xojo also needs to support natively - but making iOSTable usable for real-world apps seems like the highest priority to me.

I have a pretty good (IMHO) Xojo iOS app and, with dtPlugins and the MBS iOS Kit, plus Jason’s iOSKit and Ulrich’s iOSLib, my app doesn’t want for much. But without all of these add-ons, Xojo iOS is really just an educational/hobbyist tool.