We are new to mobile development, and our first apps will be for Android devices. We develop on Linux and Windows, and we don't have a Mac. We are evaluating available languages and development tools, and we don't want to rule out the iPhone for no good reason. My own experience with the cross-browser Java GWT language and tools has been positive, and we went Googling for something similar (cross-mobile) for Android and iPhone development. The most promising language we found was Lua (language), which claims to run on Android and iPhone (see [http://www.lua.org][/http://www.lua.org]). Lua is currently ranked 17 in the [http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html][/Tiobe Index] top 20 languages.

The Google [http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009/06/introducing-android-scripting.html][/ASE: Android Scripting Environment] supports Lua (and Python, et. al.). So far, so good.

There is a development environment called [http://anscamobile.com/corona/][/Corona SDK] which is developing libraries that support Android development (along with its existing iPhone libraries). It's not free, and it's probably not yet ready for prime-time cross-mobile development. But it looks appealing as a way to develop apps that will run on both Android and iPhone without having to actually port between Android and iPhone.

Unfortunately Corona does not run on Linux or Windows. They are thinking about it, but are asking their existing Lua iPhone developer users for their opinion, who of course already develop on Mac. In our opinion, they should be asking Android developers.

Lua and Corona may be very useful for Android developers in coming months. If you would like to see Corona ported to Linux and/or Windows for Android development, please reply and I will pass on your views to the Corona community. If you think Lua and Corona are a total waste of time for Android developers, also let us know, because we don't want to head down a dead end.

Mal.

I'm actually interested in knowing what people think about this as well. Why develop only for Android or iPhone when you can learn one language and just create copies of your application for iPhone and Android automoatically. Unless I'm missing something.

I've also heard that developing in any SDK other than Apple's is against their TOS

Anybody?

kidalex wrote:I've also heard that developing in any SDK other than Apple's is against their TOS

Is that true? Can you sell iPhone app and Android app if it's build with corona?