In the wake of the recent Mobile World Congress exhibition and conference in Spain last month, the (positive) onslaught of Android appears to be continuing apace for the foreseeable future. The appetite for applications is growing and developers have, for the most part, warmly embraced the opportunity to program within an ecosystem that engenders rapid and creative code commits.
New research by market intelligence company ComScore suggests that one out of every three new phones sold in the US is an Android-based device. The dilemma facing developers now is whether to focus their efforts on developing for Android or Apple OS X, or split their time between the two environments.
For one British software development company, the answer seems to be: Do both. RunRev, an Edinburgh, Scotland-based company, is holding its annual developer conference in San Jose this week. The US represents a growing opportunity for RunRev, and not one to miss an opportunity, it has used the conference this week to unveil the latest addition to its LiveCode development platform — an Android package.
With its roots in Hypercard, the offering is an English-syntax development platform that is geared towards seasoned developers as well as those looking to tap into the lucrative apps market. RunRev claims that the development platform means that you only need to write once and deploy anywhere. This suggests that developers can create apps for Android and then port them to the iOS platform without recoding. RunRev also suggests development time can be dramatically shortened.
Coincidently, a Forrester analyst is giving the keynote at the conference on the subject of the "3 Mega Trends Facing Application Development". One hopes that the subject of cross-platform software application development will feature on the list.
