What does every app developer need to get started?
There are a few key items needed to begin developing for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7. Luckily, due to the popularity of mobile app development, each operating system comes with a pretty straight forward start up site with the links to the required downloads and basic tutorials to get you on your way.
What are the key items?
A software development kit (sdk) is a set of tools specific to an environment or in this case a mobile operating system that make programming more easy. The sdk allows programmers to use custom classes to design code, assists with common functionality, and abstracts the code from the hardware implementation. It sometimes includes a bundle of the tools needed to begin developing.
Whether it is a proprietary language or a very commonly used language, every developer will need knowledge of a programming language. This mosltly includes keywords and syntax, but does not preclude the need to know programming best practices, how to write meaningful comments, and properly structuring an application.
This final item may not be required in all cases, but it will makes life easier nine times out of ten. It is an integrated development environment (IDE). This is where you actually write your code. Good IDEs help format the code, offer code hints, compile the application, and offer easy to use debugging functionality.
An optional yet helpful item when programming for mobile phones is a virtual device or emulator. This is a software version of a mobile device that code can be ported to and tested if an actual device is not available. While it is not best practice to rely on the functionality, it is a great place to begin running your code until you can get your hands on a device.
Let’s get started with the operating systems:
iOS – a key player for the rise of Apple‘s iPod Touch and of course their best selling iPhone.
http://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action
iOS requires a developer to register as an Apple Developer prior to downloading iOS SDK. This includes a yearly fee, but also includes all the tools required to begin coding. The SDK is bundled with Xcode IDE and the potential to create several emulators on iOS Simulator. Once all these things are in place, a developer will need to learn Objective-C. Although similar to C and C++, there are several differences that must be acknowledged when developing an iOS app.
Windows Phone 7 – a new release to the mobile world and hopes of Microsoft gaining a hold on some valuable market share.
http://create.msdn.com/en-US
Windows Phone 7 has a quick start download from the Microsoft Download Center, which includes all the required tools. The download includes an express version of Microsoft’s powerful IDE, Visual Studio 2010, and a Windows Phone Emulator. To develop an app a developer need knowledge of C#, but the operating system relies heavily on Microsoft’s Silverlight and the XNA Game Studio frameworks. There is no cost to program an application, but to market an application in Microsoft’s mobile store, a yearly fee is required.
Android – Google’s solution to an open source world to encourage innovation.
http://www.android.com/
Android uses but does not require the open source IDE, Eclipse. A plugin was created on top of this IDE known as the Android Development Tools (ADT) that simplifies the creating and coding of Android apps. It helps with setting up directories, properly compiling the code, and setting up a manifest file that is required by all Android apps. The ADT allows users to download sdk’s for each version of Android OS or a zip of the latest sdk can be downloaded from the main android developer site. Android is probably the easiest platform to step into because it is all based on native Java code. Similar to Windows Phone 7, application programming is free, but Google only requires a one time fee to their Marketplace.
Happy Coding.
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