Novell's MonoTouch product has been released. MonoTouch is mono for the iPhone.
This allows compiling .net applications to native code and deploying to the iPhone.
There are akready 200 apps in the app store using Mono via Unity so the underlying technology is fairly well tested. MonoTouch adds Cocoa support and integration into MonoDevelop.
MonoTouch has 2 main issues for some users, the $399US price point, and the logo.
The price has disappointed a number of beta testers and the logo is the second worst I have seen recently (worst is the Toastmasters goatse).
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9 comments:
"Monodevelop has 2 main issues for some users, the $399US price point, and the logo."
Well Monotouch costs ... USD 399. So the logo remains the only reason to prefer MonoTouch?
Regards
Fritz
My bad. I meant MonoTouch has 2 main issues...
Monodevelop is free, but can't compile for the iPhone without MonoTouch.
It is pretty pricey when compared with the native solution of using Cocoa and Objective C (free!). Besides, why would I use C#/.Net on the iPhone?!?
@Fletch,
It is pricy but it is worth it to some developers. I know of some who are quire excited at the prospect.
I can think of serveral reasons for using C# (I can also think of serveral reasons not too as well).
Off the top of my head:
To use existing code
To be able to share code with Windows Mobile (Windows Marketplace lauches next week)
Productivity
So which would be the reasons not to use C#? Currently I am evaluating different options of iPhone development for our company, so advice is always welcome. Since we are doing mainly Delphi and C# at the moment, MonoTouch also sounds exciting to me.
Best regards from Munich, Germany
Florian
@Florian,
Objective C is better documented, faster and $399 cheaper.
Monotouch is still a bit rough.
However I would personally look at Monotouch first before Obj C.
Sean,
"MonoTouch over ObjC" was also my first impression. I had a good laugh with the first "Hello World" iPhone tutorial on the Apple site. That was by far the most cumbersome Hello World I ever did. It also produced the code with the highest density of all kinds of brackets I've seen since SmallTalk.
Still, I see Apple's efforts to create a truly object oriented, strictly MVC-compliant environment. So the steep learning curve might pay off later, what do you think?
Florian
I have only had a brief play with Monotouch, but I like it better thatn Obj C. If I do another iPhone app, I will start with Monotouch first.
This database is compatible with monotouch:
http://www.kellermansoftware.com/p-43-ninja-net-database-pro.aspx
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