I just want to say that in the beginning I was against Xojo allocating resources on creating a Android target. However as I see more and more people I know leave iOS for Android (even die hard Apple fans). I think this is the right move on Xojo’s behalf and want to thank them for doing so.
If Xojo did compile projects to Android and we were then able to share the business logic between iOS, Desktop & Android I believe Xojo would quickly become the tool of choice for mobile development.
No doubt folks will try to tell Xojo that there’s no money in Android apps, but tell that to the developers of my bank’s app. I’m sure they made good money on that project.
Has there been an announcement about this?
Indeed, has it been officially announced?
Other than “We’ve spent some time looking at it” I don’t believe so. If Xojo were able to create an xPlat IDE that would build iOS & Android apps similar to the Desktop environment we’d all be dealing with a company with bigger revenue than both MS & Apple combined within a very short period of time.
This would be very good news, and of course it’s hard to believe that the XOJO Powers that be wouldn’t be seriously looking at Android. It’s currently the only major hardware platform that can’t run XOJO apps. If XOJO starts supporting Android, I might actually consider writing some mobile apps. But as it is right now, I can’t see myself developing something that only runs on iOS when the majority of mobile users are using Android hardware.
Totally newbie on the Android subject:
is Android phones able to be connected to Apple computers (and exchange data) ?
is Android running SQLIte DataBase (in either Read and Write) ?
I saw < 100 Android Phones and I think it may time to have a smartphone / my current phone is > 6 y/o and will probably dies in the next year(s).
@Emile Schwarz: Yes & Yes
As Xojo is mainly a cross platform tool for developing database desktop apps, it would totally make sense to have it as cross platform mobile development tool. But for that they need more than just one platform.
But for Android I hope it goes better than Cocoa or iOS.
Like at a keynote, Geoff could tell us that they have a secret project running for 2+ years were an extra developer created a counter part to iOS for Android with same classes and features.
All depends on your market. I am selling mainly to end users, both Mac and Windows. For Mac, I am in the Mac App Store, and I also sell direct through my web sites. For Windows, until I find a way to convert Xojo apps to UWP (the Bridge converter is not a piece of cake!), it will be direct sales.
Given the success of Check Writer for Mac, and the demand from customers for an iPad app, I am in the process of porting it to iOS, and indeed even if Xojo iOS is still dismally underpowered, it is a pretty easy task.
If all goes well in iTunes, I plan on having the same app under Android written in Basic4Android. Sure, it won’t exactly be like Xojo, and their IDE feels like the 80’s, but the language is close enough. For the moment, that is for me the best possibility. The matter is to be present on the markets I have identified. Android represents a huge number of iPad like tablets, and even if users are a little less affluent, it should still make a significant number of sales.
Of course, in an ideal world, I would rather prefer Xojo Android. But I am afraid even if Geoff decided to announce it next week, it would still take two years or so to become reality, judging from what happened with iOS (was it not more, actually ?). I cannot pass two years or so of sales in waiting. Not to mention copycat people are prompt to port their crâp to Android.
I am one. Mutch happier with my Android tablet and phone than I ever was with IOS.
Deploy everywhere but create on WIndows only ?
Xojo doesn’t have the resources to get there (unfortunately).
Bank loan ?
Funny.
I am not sure it is a question of resources. Erel Uziel, owner of Anywhere Software, who created B4A, and a handful of products for other platforms as well, is only one guy by himself.
With resources I didn’t mean money alone.
If you study the code of Apple’s Swift, you realize that you would need a large team of some of the best developers. And a top programming language and framework API designer (where there is maybe only a dozen of them world-wide, I just know a few names like the Swift and the C# designers).
Even more important: the foundations of the Xojo framework lie in the 90s. You realized that when using the plugin SDK. It is slowly lagging more and more behind today’s technology (despite the change to LLVM and the new framework).
And I don’t believe the problems with Xojo like the unfinished new framework, that there is still no 64-bit debugging, no ability to compile to dll/dylibs, that the debugger is worse than with RB, etc. etc. etc. will be solved (not soon and probably not ever).
And there is no possibility that Xojo on Android would enlarge the market share significantly.
And don’t forget that real programmers don’t program in BASIC this will never ever change.
This looks like a rant, but after using RB/Xojo for six years, I’d say personally for me these are the facts I have learned to live with.
Despite the Cocoa problems, XOJO has successfully moved from being a Mac only development system, to Windows, then to Linux, then to iOs and ARM, and gained much experience in the process. I can’t believe that Android would be a showstopper.
I bought one android for 45 in january … still working nicely as a cheap gps in my utility car…
althought the touch screen is a bog joke compared to a galaxy or an iphone
( oh yes and it is a branded name even for that price )
iOS for Xojo was created by one (a previous REALbasc / Real Studio) engineer only (as what was told to us); (a previous REALbasc / Real Studio engineer).
Yes, resources not only means money or engineer.