You’ve made an app for Android, iOS, Windows – what about the user interface?
Cross-platform development is a big deal, and will continue to be so until a day comes when everyone uses the same platform. Android? HTML? WebKit? iOS? Windows?
Maybe one day, but for now the world is multi-platform, and unless you can afford to ignore all platforms but one, or to develop independent projects for each platform, some kind of cross-platform approach makes sense, especially in mobile.
Sometimes I hear it said that there are essentially two approaches to cross-platform mobile apps. You can either use an embedded browser control and write a web app wrapped as a native app, as in Adobe PhoneGap/Cordova or the similar approach taken by Sencha, or you can use a cross-platform tool that creates native apps, such as Xamarin Studio, Appcelerator Titanium, or Embarcardero FireMonkey. Read more...
Ruby on Rails 3.1 will make the apps run faster
Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson has released version 3.1 of his open-source Web application development framework, adding new features that should speed the rendering of Web pages for users.
Ruby on Rails 3.1 uses a new technology called Sprockets to speed JavaScript execution. Sprockets compiles all the functions that a Web application uses into a single file, which simplifies work for the developer and quickens the response time of the application.
Ruby on Rails also streamlines performance through another new feature, called HTTP Streaming. In short, HTTP Streaming allows the browser to start downloading a Web page's stylesheets and JavaScript even while the server is still generating other parts of the page. Read more...
Baidu apes Google with Chinese Chrome
Chinese search giant Baidu has launched its own web browser, aping Google's Chrome with web applications and aspirations of becoming a desktop replacement.
The Baidu Browser only runs on Windows, but it does have its own application store for web apps (which run in a Webkit-based sandbox) and an extension framework very reminiscent of Chrome's. The browser also offers extensive customisation options for managing shortcuts, creating a screen layout more reminiscent of Apple's iPad than anything else. Read more...