[Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes] People looking for a cheap Android tablet have a new option from a respected player: The Asus Pad 7 Although not exactly falling over themselves in excitement (it is an entry level, budget device after all), reviewers are finding a lot to like in this device. But Delphi developers hoping to sell their apps to users of this device – and similar – will have to wait for Embarcadero to address a fundamental issue with their technology.
[Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes] A while ago Marco Cantu posted about an issue with implementing ShowModal in FireMonkey, specifically with reference to the difficulties this entailed on iOS and Google Android platforms. Chris Rolliston recently picked this same topic up and highlighted some problems that still remain in the FireMonkey “solution”. Both Marco and Chris however have missed a key point. Neither Google nor Apple are stupid.
[Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes] Jim McKeeth recently blogged about the results of submitting an “empty” FireMonkey app to the apkudo online Android testing service.
[Estimated Reading Time: < 1 minute] In XE4 FireMonkey supported iOS 5.1. According to the platform requirements for XE5 this has now increased to iOS 6.
[Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes] Iztok has been at it again, making comments that prompt another post. 🙂 He expresses his view that there are only two viable options for mobile development. The first is essentially the web-based technology approach (HTML/JS/PhoneGap etc) and the other is the platform native tool chains, Eclipse/AndroidStudio/Xcode etc.
[Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes] Embarcadero have blogged about the first Android app “in the wild” (actually, being on the Play store I think it’s the first domesticated app – wild ones surely get side-loaded ? :)). Rather embarrassingly they already have a comment from someone unable to use this “true native Android” application on their actual Android device.
[Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes] In the comments to my previous post, David Intersimone mentioned that Embarcadero are working on enabling support for platform native UI controls within FireMonkey!
[Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes] This post is one of those classic double-entendres for which us Brits are (in)famous, involving as it does both an actual Pain In The Butt and a euphemistic one.
[Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes] We have had almost a year of monkeying with fire now – enough time I think for people to have formed a view as to whether it is truly a viable multi-platform framework for the future, or just a convenient cross-platform solution with limited, genuine utility. At the same time, we have had OS X and some iOS support for the same period, with the prospect of more platforms being made available to us Delphi developers in the future. So, looking ahead, do we see FireMonkey as providing a solid foundation for a cross-platform future, or would we prefer to see tighter, closer “native” support for MULTIPLE-platforms (both currently supported and envisaged/promised) ? I know what I think: As much as I’d prefer to use ObjectPascal, I quickly decided that using Delphi + FireMonkey for OS X / iOS was like trying to ice-skate uphill. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that the disconnect between me, my code and the environment I was writing for was going to be a source of nothing but constant pain and frustration, and so decided to learn Objective-C and Xcode instead. I anticipate this will be only worse when it comes to Android, so Read More…
[Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes] Marc Hoffman kindly took the time to respond to my previous post and prompted me to re-formulate and expand my observations on Jim McKeeths post (which never made it to the comments thread on the RO blog for reasons best known to The Cloud).
