The word is out. XE5 will be coming this September, as described in the announcement of a tour of Russia to promote the new release.
Translation:
Dear developers! Traditionally, in September we are launching a new version of RAD Studio, this year has been for us an exception, as we started the RAD Studio XE4 in which we have added support for iOS in April and received a lot of requests and questions about support for Android, as it is one of the most popular platforms for mobile development. This September we will show you a new version of RAD Studio to which we have added support for the long-awaited Android. With support for Android, you can create applications for all popular platforms, including Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Android from a single code base.
Now, this text just talks about a “new version” and doesn’t mention XE5 by name but the blog post is titled “RAD Studio XE5”.
We also know from the updated roadmap that – as expected – the Android support will rely on mimicking the UI and UX of the Android platform just as it does with iOS, providing “Native Style” in these areas rather than a genuinely native UI.
“Native Style” is an oxymoron as far as I am concerned. Like “Original Copy” or “Authentic Fake”.
It seems from that roadmap that Android will be part of the “Mobile Add-On”, but coming as part of a “new release” as it appears to, it is highly unlikely that this is coming free of charge. I expect Embarcadero are busily preparing to herd their users off to the milking shed once more, before their udders run completely dry or the herd is too drastically depleted by escapees making it to one of the adjacent fields where the grass is actually green, not just “Green Style”.
In addition, a little birdy tells me that there is an event happening in Auckland here in New Zealand at the end of August, so if nothing official is announced before then I might even have some more concrete details of what will actually be in XE5 in advance of that September tour of Russia.
Right to left direction for firemonkey will be support or Not in XE5?
A good question – I shall keep my eyes open for any clues on this and ask the question if I get the chance.
XE5 is imminent? Is anyone using XE4 for actual paying production use yet? 🙂
Company builds tractors. Good tractors. Farmers buy the tractors.
Sometimes, farmers must take tractors on road.
Company sees this, sees cars on road. Many, many cars.
Company wants to make money selling to car buyers.
Farmers need strong, low gears. Company changes to fast, high gears.
Farmers need low-rev diesel. Company changes to hi-rev gas.
Farmers need heavy steel chassis. Company changes to carbon fiber.
Farmers need big, fat wheels. Company changes to small, light wheels.
Farmers cannot use the new tractor, so buy tractors from other companys.
Car buyers dont buy because they want cars and everybody knows, inside, these are really tractors.
I’m not quite sure what you are saying, but one conclusion would be that Embarcadero – if this is the “Company” you had in mind – are a new Lamborghini. 🙂
But whilst Embarcadero’s endeavours to extract $’s from their customers might support this, the allure of their products… not so much. 😀
I am thinking of VCL and FMX…
In that case it would be cars = cars and tractors = horse and buggy. 🙂 “Win32 Forever!” would not be a winning business plan for Embarcadero. They’re certainly not close to being a winner in that market, and it’s a contracting one populated by a monopoly on one hand and open source on the other.
The ‘milking’ does continue of course. Did you expect anything different?
EMB simply force people into SA. Pay N Stay. Pay more money for a better prison cell. Jolyon that’s the new world. Nothing specific to EMB in general.
The mobile devices – evolved from the cell phone. Figure out why?
The spirit of IT has gone and now the whole industry is going to milk those who are dependent. If the vendors don’t get the money from the customer they get it from the developers.
Every vendor is convinced that what they produce does make lots of sense.
No, I for one didn’t expect any different. Others may have done though.
There must be something wrong. The beta test hasn’t started yet and they will present XE5 in September?
On the roadmap slides it is mentioned that the beta for XE5 is already under way, for XE4 users that request access.
Sir Humphrey would have been proud. 😉
Oh you had to go and mention that. 🙁 🙁 🙁 The Usual Suspects are at the forum now insisting that since it doesn’t explicitly say that you can’t be a beta tester if you don’t have XE4, that it’s complete BS to say that you have to have XE4. They’re dogpiling on a Usual Whipping Boy (Luigi Sandon) and insisting that he apologize and admit he was wrong for saying something like this without any evidence.
Yes, the Reality Distortion Field around TeamB has finally grown stronger than the one around Apple! Since TeamB’s interpretation of this sentence makes no rational sense for the English language…
e.g. “All those 21 and over may order alcoholic beverages from the bar” doesn’t mean that those under 21 can’t (THEN WHY BRING UP THE AGE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?!?)”
…they have to know they’re incorrect and somehow think they can fool the rest of us. That or they believe their own spin now and just can’t imagine EMBT doing anything short-sighted ever, like limiting beta testing to owners of the current version to try to encourage sales rather than get the most amount of testers to help produce the most solid product. 🙁
Interestingly enough, this is really the final straw for me. On XE5 release day I think I’m going to post my “So Long And Thanks For All the FishDBs” post and then not look back. I’ve been posting there for months unofficially hoping against hope someone could convince me otherwise, but it’s clear to me now that there’s no real hope for Delphi. Even when they have a clear sense of what they need to do, they lack the resources to do it and they brought along their biggest problems from Borland to Codegear to Embarcadero. Borland was right – there’s no real room for commercial development tools anymore; they’ve become commodities and EMBT simply can’t deliver $1000USD+ of extra value over open source options. Turbo Pascal and Delphi, like DBase, Lotus 1-2-3, Wordstar and many others, will be remembered for what they accomplished in their day, but that day has come and gone. The world’s moved on, no matter how often someone at the Delphi forum suggests that there are more Delphi programmers than Java programmers (really happened) or EMBT claims a ridiculous 2 million users two years ago and bumped the figure up to 3 million this year, implying a preposterous 50% increase in world user base in two years (because as long as you’re inventing numbers, why not invent big ones)?
People, stop the insanity and move to Lazarus and FPC!!!!!
The only way to make Borcadero change is to move to Lazarus.
You can whine about it or do something and that something is Lazarus and FPC!!!!!!!
Yes, official announcement first week of September and during this month videos will be available.
This first release will have just basic features, many components and classes won’t be available on this first release.
We are very disappointed here, but as usual management is saying that we have to ship, no matter what.
People, stop the insanity and move to GPS and GNAT!!!!!
The only way to make Borcadero change is to move to GPS.
You can whine about it or do something and that something is GPS and GNAT!!!!!!!
@OCTAGRAM, Why using GPS and not Lazarus? With Lazarus you can use your Delphi skills. GNAT Programming Studio looks a bit outdated and feature poor.
Lazarus now supports some major Delphi components:
+ FastReport
+ TeeChart
Just waiting for DevExpress, than I can switch 🙂
Because FPC is feature poor, and Lazarus by definition cannot compensate this. Ada goes its own way, gathering some good features from Java (interfaces with multiple inheritance), Eiffel (contracts) without bias. Delphi evolves by borrowing ideas from .NET, and they fit in good enough. FPC took the worsest path possible. It could borrow from Ada, it could borrow from .NET. Instead, it borrows from C++, and it works awful. Everything good that came into FPC did it because Delphi also got this feature, and developers expect FPC to support new Delphi features. Without Borland/Embarcadero guidance, FPC developers are fruitless.