Can Appcelerator Change The Face of Mobile? 3,000 Developers Think So

Written by Steven Walling / July 16, 2009 12:15 AM / 10 Comments

In little more than a month, the beta of Appcelerator's Titanium Mobile has garnered the attention of more than 3,000 developers. But the beta hasn't just gotten some respectable use: it's changing what kind of apps get created.

Titanium Mobile is aimed at those looking to build apps for the iPhone and Android, but who'd rather code in standard HTML, CSS and JavaScript instead of Objective-C or Java. By opening up the most popular mobile devices to anyone with Web development chops, an entirely different class of app has taken over on the platform, compared to what you'll commonly see in the App Store.

As we noted in our review of the beta when it first launched, the real test of Titanium Mobile is whether or not developers will embrace it. In answer to that test, Appcelerator is touting the 3,000 they've had sign up for their beta in just over a month.

While that's nothing to sneeze at, the real sea change that Appcelerator might make isn't about popularity. It's about what kind of development is getting done.

In accordance with Apple's marketing scheme for the device, the breakaway majority of iPhone applications have been entertainment and gaming. The difference when looking at those working with Titanium is stark. The number one category of app to come out of the platform is utilities, such as server monitoring. The next two tiers are business apps to create mobile versions of enterprise software and social networking.

If adoption of Titanium Mobile continues as such a breakneck pace, the stats so far suggest that it could have a significant impact on trends in mobile development.

Comments

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I don't get the difference to Phonegap? So what's all the fuss about?

Posted by: Felix Baaken | July 16, 2009 1:23 AM

A good idea in lots of ways, but even with the latest improvements to the iPhone and Android JavaScript engine(s) I'd still question as to whether it is an appropriate language for mobile phone development.

It is a magnitude slower, and magnitude more inefficient in terms of battery impact although that is less relevant for something you may fire up for just a couple of minutes.

That of course may also explain the difference in the nature of the apps being built - you're not going to be writing Worms or Super Monkey Ball in web technologies any time soon.

Posted by: JulesLt | July 16, 2009 1:50 AM

The benefit of using standard web technologies (CSS, HTML, JavaScript) is that developers are not dependent on any changes Apple makes to the iPhone SDK. You can write and app for iPhone OS 3.0 today and feel assured that it will work with iPhone OS 4.0

Posted by: http://khurt.com/blog/ | July 16, 2009 4:14 AM

This is pretty interesting. You should submit this to http://appuseful.com

Posted by: NMN | July 16, 2009 6:06 AM

@JulesLt: For utility applications I'm not sure this is going to be much slower or less efficient. This is because the program won't be running on a Javascript engine, it's running on the native engine. In other words, this tool compiles your Javascript into Objective C. I don't see any other way of doing it, since the iPhone specifically disallows the distribution of any interpreters in the App Store.

For graphical applications, of course, C and Objective C is the only way to go -- you need to squeeze every last bit you can out of the phone, and machine-generated code won't cut it.

Posted by: Raj | July 16, 2009 7:52 AM

What is Appcelerator's response to the issues that plagued Phonegap for a while (and maybe until now, I haven't checked recently) ?

Developers using Phonegap were getting rejected from the App store by Apple, as Apple didn't like that they were essentially bypassing the Apple SDK to build apps.

That's a big concern for someone delving into a new dev environment like this - you don't want to spend time learning something that becomes redundant as soon as an Apple QA rep figures out you didn't use the Apple SDK.

Posted by: yongfook | July 16, 2009 8:46 AM

Thanks to everyone for their interest. We're very excited at the response to our new mobile product. In response to a couple of questions posted above

1) There are several features that make our product unique. First, we provide an environment that makes building apps very, very easy. We have a client side environment called Titanium Developer that will speed you through developing, testing, and packaging your app. Second, we've added support for native functionality throughout the application. You are not limited to a single web view, but rather an unlimited number of web views, each containing either native or web-rendered functionality. For example, you can have native access to a database inside a native table view in the main content window. This bypasses the webkit engine and goes straight to the native device support (eg: better performance). You can see many more examples on our latest webcast here: https://appcelerator.webex.com/appcelerator/ldr.php?AT=pb&SP=MC&rID=37727292&rKey=05e8b8e1f2a5e239

2) In terms of getting through the review process, there are several things we do to ensure compliance. The most significant is that we compile down every app into a discrete binary. In other words, you can't ship a Titanium-built app with loose Javascript/HTML that could be updated post-submittal. Second, and this really comes from putting Titanium through its paces, every part of your app accesses native iPhone (or Android) functionality. Transitions, UI, device APIs, main content areas, etc - your apps look native throughout. So, at the end of the day, your apps are compiled like native apps AND they look and perform native throughout.

3) In terms of performance, for the majority of use cases, we are seeing very solid performance. We don't see 3D games, for instance, in our app portfolio, but we certainly see a lot of applications that are connected to the web and leveraging native device functionality. This is due in part to the Javascript/HTML/CSS tools used to make these apps, but also the web background of developers building apps on Titanium for mobile and desktop platforms.

One final factoid - of the over >1,000 apps started on Titanium over the past few weeks, we're seeing near equal adoption of iPhone and Android. The reason is simple: when the development walls are brought down, there's no reason not to develop on both platforms. And, btw, we have full support for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms too. So, you can build both a mobile app and a netbook app on the same platform.

Interested in learning more? Sign up for our beta at www.appcelerator.com

Cheers,

Scott Schwarzhoff
VP, Marketing
Appcelerator
sschwarzhoff at appcelerator.com

Posted by: Scott | July 16, 2009 11:25 AM

@Felix
Come check us out and see :) Our biggest difference is raw functionality, and feel. Our APIs are more comprehensive than PhoneGap, and we enable fully native controls in your Javascript/HTML. We also have Titanium Developer (also open source) that makes testing on your device or in the emulator a snap.

@yongfook
We take a different approach than PhoneGap for iPhone. Instead of bundling your HTML/Javascript/CSS as files in your app, we compile them into your executable natively. While we can't say with absolute certainty that our approach will merit 100% acceptance rate (even regular native iPhone apps don't get that), we think it's a big improvement.

Posted by: Marshall Culpepper | July 16, 2009 11:25 AM

I do not know if it would be much slower or less efficient. This is because the program will not be able to run in the JavaScript engine, its engine running in the local.

Posted by: Ricky | July 16, 2009 9:33 PM

One final factoid - of söve the over >1,000 apps started on Titanium over the past few weeks, we're seeing near equal adoption of iPhone söve and Android. The reason is simple: söve when the development walls are brought down, there's no reason not to develop on both platforms. And, btw, we have full support for söve Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms too. So, söve you can build both a mobile app and a netbook app on the same platform.

Posted by: söve | July 19, 2009 7:05 AM