Titanium vs The Native Tools

Question

I'm still checking everything out.

I'm wondering what the limitations are if we develop the app using Titanium. What cannot be done using Titanium, for iPhone and for Android? What things can only be done using only the the native tools?

I heard that performance could be an issue. How bad is this going to be?

Thank you in advance. :)

Lardon

Answer 1

Hey guys, some good news. Titanium seems to be in the clear now.

http://developer.appcelerator.com/blog/2010/09/in-the-clear-apple-opens-up-ios-to-all-developers.html

Behrens

that's old news... as it happens more than a week ago :) – Provisional

Answer 2

Last I checked Alarm Manager was not available for the Android OS. I also found the Titanium compiler to be buggy and crash for arcane reasons.

Bettinabettine

After 2 years, it's still buggy, but at least you'll be able to see the crash log in ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/*. That should at least make the crashes less arcane. – Legge

Answer 3

The only missing feature I've found so far is that there's no access to the device's secure storage API (e.g. Keychain on iPhone). If you're looking to write something that accesses a web service (which lots of apps are), you'll probably want a safer way of storing creds than in the app's Properties.

Kamilah

Answer 4

This answer is now incorrect - Apple have reverted this decision.

Well, one potential problem with using Itanium is that, according to the new Apple developer agreement, you cannot develop for the iPhone using anything other than C, C++ or Objective C. Specifically you cannot use any third party tool to develop a native application. For more information see these sites for some more details, or google for "apple iphone third party compiler".

Here is a statement from the CEO of Appcelerator about the announcement and what it might mean. Long story short, at the moment no-one seems to know. Definitely out is the old Flash→iPhone compiler from Adobe, but some people believe that there are shades of grey in the middle.

Penal

remember that this only applies for the coming OS4 (June 22nd) not previous versions as today Apple accepts it, and only in the Developer Program (through AppStore) and not the Enterprise Program that let you deploy your app without the AppStore. – Provisional

@Provisional - absolutely, however given that this is for a new development, it would be remiss not to mention this, admittedly potential, downside. – Penal