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3287

answers:

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I have a very popular Apple iPhone app and wish to port to another mobile platform. What is best the Palm Pre or Google Android? The Android has more popularity with manufacturers but I worry about installation issues and incompatibilities. The Pre has one carrier and one mfr but I worry its sales will be too low.

My app uses an SQLite database and is content rich and over 200MB.

A: 

Ahhh, the great debate. Likely to start a holy war. It seems to me that there is a bigger buzz about the Pre than the Android. On the other hand, Palm has failed at this once before, and I have a hard time counting Google out.

I think I'm in the Pre camp. Get in early. Risk versus reward.

Darthg8r
Trouble with the Pre is its sales are so puny, there is no store yet, they have manufacturing quality issues, the battery life is not great, etc. I would love to see Microsoft buy Palm and then create a Zune store that mirrors the ecology of iTunes because the app store is as important IMHO as the device itself.
goofy166
Having tinkered with the *free* Pre SDK, I can tell you that you'll develop *many* times faster on it than on Android. Hint: if you can "code" a webpage, you can code a Pre app. Darthg8r may be picking the darkhorse in this race, but you should also never completely discount the underdog; sometimes, you get a surprise that no-one was expecting to see.
Avery Payne
@goofy166, 1) I would expect sales to be low, given the iPhone halo effect 2) there is a store getting off the ground now, 3) you can replace the battery with *larger* batteries; see http://www.seidioonline.com/product-p/basi13pmx3.htm for a small example, although there are huge batteries you can get as well. re: MS buying Palm, they would only do it to kill whatever tech is there, given that MS has a huge vested interest in pushing Windows Mobile.
Avery Payne
+7  A: 

You did not mention if your app was paid or free, and whether it included ads or not. The story is clear regarding both of those on Android. You can not yet sell Pre applications, and we don't even know how Palm is going to handle paid applications. I am also not aware of advertising solutions for Pre.

As for the number of users, Android beats Pre hands down currently. And being the more open platform, I have no doubt in Android enjoying faster growth as well.

Heikki Toivonen
The app is one of the highest cost apps in the store, but we also have a free lite version. It does not include ads. I am concerned that an Android app will need to be tweaked for each platform, is that not something to worry about being its java based?
goofy166
If you build layouts properly they size for every device. And yes, because it's Java based, the same code will work on every device.
Isaac Waller
Our thinking is to make the graphics all scaled in real time to fit any differences in screen size however it was my understanding all Androids used 320 x 480 just like the iPhone.Also my understanding is there Android has a large framework that must be learned.
goofy166
Yes, I think all current Android devices have the same resolution. However, different resolutions will almost certainly enter the market in near future. Android will also be an option for netbooks etc. It is possible to create the UI in a way that looks nice in all resolutions. As for large framework, an elaborate UI will by necessity require somewhat large framework to handle. (If your app were simple, you'd need to learn just a small subset.)
Heikki Toivonen
Considering our GUI has some custom controls and is pretty customized the work involved in an Android port will be considerable from the graphics layout side. And if Android becomes a netbook OS as rumored I also assume that will mean some thought must go into making it adapt to a larger screen size without needing to rewrite the entire app. Thanks for all the good advice.
goofy166
As of yesterday, you can submit paid apps for review.
AngryHacker
I'm not sure that Android is as "open" as you might describe. And why do I have to code everything up as Java? Yeah, the Pre's sales have had their oxygen sucked out by the iPhone (and friends) but the last time people laughed about all of those "wacky website people" not getting anywhere was back in '97; and now the web is everywhere you *sneeze*. The Pre's saving strength is going to be the ease in which you can pump out apps, which are thinly disguised webpages. If anything is going to kill Palm, it will most likely be Palm itself (in the form of crappy marketing, etc.), not the Pre.
Avery Payne
By open I meant open source. You are not limited to Google or T-Mobile or HTC to get a device with Android on it. Theoretically you could also get it for free (although in practice anyone bringing a new Android device to market will need some engineering resources). With Palm WebOS your only option is to talk to Palm. I believe we will be seeing a lot of cheap devices running Android. I doubt that will happen with WebOS. Java vs web app is a valid point, but I think Android has too much going for it for this to turn the tide.
Heikki Toivonen
A: 

Couple of points to port your iphone application on Android and Pre devices

Android: recently they come out with native support, so it should not be too hard to port cpp code to android paltform using JNI

Palm Pre: As if now, development is purely supporting using Java script, and i am afraid you will have to re-write your app to support Pre.

My obvious choice will be go with Android first, this platform is supported by many OEMs and many carriers worldwide while Pre is limited to one carrier and with only one device at the moment in the market. Android definitely has much better market penetration than Pre

iamiPhone
iPhone programs are written in Objective-C... some C++ could be used though.
micmoo
I'm getting the same impression that Android is the way to go and that the Palm Pre is still in its embryonic stages.
goofy166
+1  A: 

Android has the ability to be written in Java a generic enough way that your J2ME ports which can then run on Sonys, Blackberries, Nokias and Samsungs should be a short hop away if you desired. However a lot more detail of what you application did would be necessary as it might be something that is very achievable in a short time frame on the Palm

Which may sway you decision as to Android and Pre thats probably a coin flip decision

kgutteridge
Our iPhone app has a very rich and elaborate interface with custom controls which means a generic lava app would look pretty crummy.
goofy166
obviously totally depends on the app, but if it is already all custom controls that probably means you can do it in Java, its actually porting the particular platforms framework gui code that takes the time, if it has been extensively used or extended
kgutteridge
A: 

You might want to add BlackBerry to your considerations.

When combining all of the RIM models available, the total number of units sold beats the total units sold for Pre and Android devices combined.

Plus they have their App World service up and running now for selling your app through.

Jim

Marcos Vandel
A: 

I'd definitely go with Android. The palm pre is making progress, but is still rare as far as smartphones go. If your app caters to a niche market in any way, you're likely to find the market is just too small.

Just one thing to remember with Android, though -- you can't make a 200MB app. The phones only allow apps to be stored in onboard memory, which is usually about 512MB with the OS taking 300MB. 200MB is the entire storage space for all apps on the phone. Android phones come with SD cards where data, but not applications, can be stored. You'll probably need to allow users to download your app's database to their SD card after they've installed a smaller, data-less application.

Ben Gotow
A: 

I'd go for Android too, (ok we now have a clearer vision compared to when the question was first asked ;) ) It's just there, everywhere now, so it can't be ignored. Plus i'm more of a Java developer ;).

Actually my concern is the opposite of yours: I'm an Android developer, and I port my apps to the iPhone. I used to do it by hand, but I found this product called ,iSpectrum ( http://www.flexycore.com ). There a video showing an Android 3D app ported to iPhone in 2 days only. This may be interesting a choice tool for you (if you decided to choose Android against Palm...)

JavaDev