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I would like to develop a cross-platform application for mobile phones as I would like to just programe once and have the app for the differents platforms we have nowadays.

I took a look of the differents frameworks there are and I would like to skip all of the web bases frameworks, like phonegap, which uses html/javascript, as I feel the applications developed with those framework will not have a good performance. I prefer to develop native applications.

With that in mind, I found LiveCode or Xamarin which look interesting but since I don't have any experiencie with them, I'm not really sure of which one I should take. Apparently, for instance, Xamarin doesn't share all the code you develop...

I need some suggestions and advices with this as I will have to learn to use the framework from the beggining and I don't want to waste my time!

So, any experiencie using any of those frameworks? suggestions? advices?

Frion3L
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  • This is an opinion-based question. Not a programming question. You shouldn't ask this on StackOverflow. – Mark Jan 27 '14 at 18:56

2 Answers2

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What is your use-case? For most enterprise apps, HTML5 based apps are good enough. Native apps are better suited for games and multi-media apps.

See this

Titanium Appcelerator has been a standard choice outside of PhoneGap inspired platforms.

Paddy
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  • I just feel if I can develop a native application instead than a html5 based one, why would I develop it using html? Even if the app does not need that much performance... And with native I'm refering to frameworks like LiveCode, which exports the final app as native code – Frion3L Jan 22 '14 at 13:15
  • Then, you suggest me to use Titanium Appcelerator? The app is going to be quite simple... – Frion3L Jan 22 '14 at 14:14
  • You would use PhoneGap+ if you want to use existing html5/jquery/dojo skill set and share content between/from web-app, mobile-web-app and mobile-app. Otherwise, LiveCode and Xamarin both have good IDE's, have similar platform support, LiveCode is PHP style, and Xamarin is easy if you have worked in .Net environment. If you have a simple app, with rapid development need, LiveCode is a better fit. – Paddy Jan 22 '14 at 17:28
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I have evaluated most popular platforms and do not want to get into any arguments about the pro's and con's of each of those because that is not what you asked for nor the purpose of this forum.

During my evaluation process over many months, the main decisions eventually came down to whether I needed to brush up on my Java skills and/or learn more about HTML or indeed learn a new programming language.

If you do not have existing skills in Java or HTML, then Livecode is by far the easiest route to follow. Its English language based command set is easy to learn and use during development and to debug and maintain afterwards. There are no awkward sequences of special characters and phrases required to say what you want to achieve. It also has a great 'drag-and-drop' WYSIWYG IDE and speed of development is a fraction to what you will do in other IDE's. Despite its ease of use, Livecode produces cross-platform (IOS, Android, OSX, Windows etc) native apps from a single source code base.

If, on the other hand, you have some good JavaScript experience, then Appcelerator and JQuery Mobile with Phonegap may be better suited for your requirement.

For me personally, it eventually was a no-brainer - Livecode.

Good luck with your endeavours

Danny
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