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We have developed an Android app under Eclipse and want to port it to the IPhone. From what I have read here and elsewhere it seems to me that this will require a separate code base and SDK, probably running on a MAC, so that its product can be signed and delivered to the app store.

There is talk here that with HTML5 and Javascript you can write an application that will run on both platforms. I can't figure out if this is just gossip or has a basis in fact.

Looking for some guidance on how to proceed. This is a commercial app so I am looking for a path that will provide a solid development platform, allowing the developer to concentrate on the product, not trying to get the IDE to fly straight.

Bob Clegg
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  • Thanks all, for your replies. If I could tick them all I would because each brought up valid points for consideration. Alex's reply is closest to my thinking so the tick goes there. – Bob Clegg Oct 24 '13 at 00:29

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"There is talk here that with HTML5 and Javascript you can write an application that will run on both platforms. I can't figure out if this is just gossip or has a basis in fact."

It's not just gossip. There are many cross-platform tools/frameworks out there such as titanium appcelerator and phonegap.

Please see:

http://phonegap.com/

http://www.appcelerator.com/

Pick the one that fits your requirements: Comparison between Corona, Phonegap, Titanium

I think there are a lot of commercial apps built using these platforms.

http://www.appcelerator.com/customers/app-showcase/

http://phonegap.com/app/

Community
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pt2121
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We have developed an Android app under Eclipse

You already implemented your app using Java, right? Porting Android Java into iOS Objective-C or C++ would be good (for performance or so forth), but there is another way for it. Using Java VM on iOS would help for the situation.

Easily share code between Android and iOS apps. The standard classes (java.lang., java.util., etc) included in RoboVM are based on Android's runtime. [from RoboVM]

You can share your code between Android and iOS apps for the application logic and so on except "view" code.

Kazuki Sakamoto
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If you already have a professionally written Android application then, perhaps, the quickiest would be just to port it to iOS. This would mean separate code base but then you already have all the code it's a porting task you just hire an experinced iOS developer so she can translate from Android Java to whatever idioms are there in iOS in Objective C.

Then you also may want to migrate some of your engine to C++, both Android and iOS support C++ code. This depends, however, on what your app is. Perhaps, it's not worth the effort.

Alexander Kulyakhtin
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You can develop hybrid applications using technologies like Phonegap. You can access some of the native API (camera, gps, etc)with javascript an build the applcation using Single Page App and HTML5, JS and CSS principles and then package into a native shell, that is only a fullscreen browser.

In my experience you can have some sort of codebase but if your app gets complicated you find a lot of time trying to fix error between platforms.

This tech is best suitable for informative and simple apps.

Carlos487
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