Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Looking at BlackBerry as a development platform

I found an interesting article about experiences of developing for the BlackBerry.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Should I take the plunge into iPhone development?

I have been delaying getting into iPhone Application development. I had so many ideas for developing applications for the mobile device. Android definitely helped me get a feel of what it takes to develop mobile apps. My last experience developing for a hand held device was with Palm OS 3.0 with Code Warrior IDE about a decade ago. After that Android has been my only foray into mobile development.

The reason I feel that I should finally give in to iPhone is that I dont see much traction for Android applications. The market place and success stories of iPhone developers lure me more towards it. The other reason is that I want to keep my skills current and relevant. When Palm Pre was to be released there was much excitement in the developer community, but now it seems to have fizzled out.

I want to be able to learn an exciting new platform and also look at it in a slightly commerical light. Why should I not be able to translate my efforts to dollars?

My biggest mental block to iPhone is perhaps the requirements where I have to get a Mac. I have always been a developer who has used Windows and Linux to quite an extent. I have only used a Mac for maybe an hour or so in my entire career.

Or should I look into Symbian? It has a Windows based development environment.

Anyone out there who has some experience with this? Please share your thoughts.