Titanium 1.3 out - a few comments...
I refrained from posting this on the announcement but:
I'm glad to see some emphasis on Android - but there's a long way to go to bring it just to parity with Apple development. It'll be great when the day arrives that the kitchenSink doesn't have to hide/exclude functionality on Android and the Ti mobile SDK is truly cross-platform.
API changes wise with 1.3 - half are iPhone only. It's great to see new things in the API but as Titanium start to support more devices (Blackberry, WinMo, etc) - it's going to be a minefield for us to work out what features are available on what device. Anybody that's targeting multiple devices will have to use the lowest common denominator - something that a common API is supposed to prevent.
You're doing a great job and it's really cool that you guys set aggressive deadlines/targets.
3 Answers
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I guess this goes to our philosophy with the product. We're not trying to make Titanium a "write once, run everywhere" type of product for the following reasons:
- "write once, run everywhere" is almost always an empty promise anyway
- You should be able to leverage unique capabilities of each device, while maintaining as much cross-platform code as possible.
Titanium allows you to share your network, database, some UI, and other code across platforms, while giving you the flexibility to branch your code so that you can make the best app on every platform. Our hope is that 75% or more of your code is cross-platform, while the other 25% differentiates your app on each device, leveraging the capabilities that make that device unique. Point taken on Android API parity, though, and we've devoted more resources for 1.3 and beyond to focus on Android dev.
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I'll be ecstatic when when a table with 15 rows renders in less than a second. The lack of snap really diminishes the user experience, and is why I haven't released my titanium-based android app yet.
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That's exactly the type of approach we're also after - the minefield is more working out & knowing which API features are available on which platform. Great to see more resources being put into bringing Android support up to speed - the docco on the Android module SDK is really great and the dialogue on the Google group around API design for intents is a solid move in the right direction.
"write once, run everywhere" should be entirely possible within the scope of the mobile sdk. Excluding the obvious special iPad extensions ofc :)
Out of interest - as Android & chrome OS tablets become available - are you guys considering extensions to facilitate development on these platforms? They won't have the wow factor of the iPad but for developers they're likely to be "bread & butter" platforms for income.
It's many words to really say the same thing - API Parity - across the board where possible :)
You guys are doing a great job and I push your platform to any and all devs that have the misfortune to listen to me - it's more a reflection of the sense of disappointment I get from Android developers listened to me and started using Titanium :)