Converting iPhone/iPad apps onto Android

android ios ios4 cross-platform porting
jimbo picture jimbo · Jan 5, 2011 · Viewed 50.6k times · Source

I have started to build my own apps on iPhone and iPad using the iPhone SDK. The next question that is always asked by the client is, "Can we have it on Android?"

So my question to you, 'the internet', is: what are my options?

I don't have the time to learn another language (learning iOS has been enough!), so are there companies who specialize in this, or are there any online services that do a conversion?

Any help on this welcome, just need to know which way to turn...

Answer

hpique picture hpique · Jan 5, 2011

No, there is no way to convert an existing iOS app to an Android app.

However, there are cross-platform frameworks that allow you to code once and deploy your app in more than one platform. The most popular are based on HTML/CSS/JavaScript and one of them is PhoneGap.

You can also develop for iOS and Android with Adobe technologies such as Adobe AIR (this was forbidden by Apple until recently).

And there are online services (such as Mobile Roadie) that allow you to generate cross-platform apps using a content management system.

That said, I strongly recommend to:

  • Learn Android and Java development if you want to specialize in mobile development.
  • Take advantage of the strengths of each platform when working on an iOS/Android project, instead of creating something that uses only what's common to both.

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