views:

263

answers:

9

Exists an universal phone developement language? I mean, for example, php or java or whatever

Edit : We have to develop a few phone applicatons, and we are looking for the best reusable language in differents devices (Blackberry, iPhone, Motorola, etc)

A: 

Well!!! Most of the phones support java. What are you trying to do? Learn a new language?

Shoban
+4  A: 

Java is as close as you'll come, but it's no where near universal (iPhone doesn't support it!)

Since iPhone's language isn't used by anything else either, it's pretty much a given that you won't find a universal solution.

Bill K
Java is supported by the MOST number of platforms/devices out there so is generally the best choice for mobile development. J2me BlackBerry Android. The iphone counts for the smallest share of mobile device out there on the market today. FYI
drubin
Yes, or you could view it as dollars per application for private application developers--on that chart iPhone owns 99% of the market and all others are at 1% (Numbers are 100% PFMA, but probably accurate)
Bill K
A: 

Java is probably the closest you're going to find.

chills42
+2  A: 

Java (more specifically J2ME) will work on most phones. Googles Android and Blackberry development involves Java too. On Symbian-phones you can develop in C and there is an interpreter for python. If you are aiming for the iPhone market you have to stick to Objective-C and the Cocoa Touch framework.

Christian Stade-Schuldt
+1  A: 

There is no universal language, nor universal runtime that is supported by all of the major platforms. Two major players are Java on J2ME, BlackBerry and Android devices and Objective-C on the iPhone.

Barry Wark
Is it time to make an universal runtime with an universal language for phone developement? As I see, the situation now is like having a different language/environment for every PC brand (like in 50s) Is iPhone closing the road?
Invictvs
Well, that's what J2ME was supposed to be. Unfortunately, the variety of device forms and capabilities leads to an equally non-universal environment with different J2ME specs (I forget what the call them) for each type of system.
Barry Wark
+4  A: 

Rhodes by Rhomobile is a Ruby framework for building cross-platform phone applications. It allows you to build a single application that works on all major smartphones: iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android. (The only obvious omissions seem to be OpenMoko and PalmOS/webOS, but all the phones you listed are supported.)

The way Rhodes works, is that you write your application in Ruby and your UI in HTML. A Ruby implementation, the Rhodes framework itself, your application scripts and your HTML files then get packaged up into what looks to the phone's operating system like a single native application. Rhodes then runs a webserver inside of the phone and serves the application from there, using the phone's builtin web browser UI component and a JavaScript UI library for making the web app look like a native app. (E.g. iUI for the iPhone.)

There was a nice introduction to Rhodes (with live coding) by the Rhomobile CEO at the Mountain West RubyConf 2009, the video is available at the Confreaks website.

Jörg W Mittag
Seems very interesting!!. (All is invented!!!) How about performance? (i.e Blackberry bold)
Invictvs
+1  A: 

You might want to check out Symbian phone OS, it is intended as a common OS originally a joint collaboration between Nokia, Motorla and Ericsson. see: www.symbian.org/index.php

andora
+1  A: 

HTML + Javascript + CSS

PhoneGap!

It is the only cross platform mobile framework that I know of. Has feature support for iPhone, Android and Blackberry

http://phonegap.com/

KClough
A: 

Even if you can do it, what good does it do to write a mediocre application that doesn't really take full advantage of whatever device it is on?

Bite the bullet and choose to do great implementations on a selected subset of mobile platforms.

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner