Feedhenry or Native Android

skateboardP

Hi all,

I've already designed a native iPhone app using objective-c.
However I was in the middle of the development of the iPhone app when I discovered feed henry.

I'm looking to build an android version of my iPhone app and i'm not sure whether to build a native android app using java or to use the feedhenry system (or something similar such as phonegap/titanium etc).

Does anyone have any experience using feedhenry? Is it an easier route to take or would I be better to just stick with java?
I have some knowledge of java so it wouldn't be too much of a learning curve for me.

jdrumgoole

Hi SkateBoardP,

FeedHenry is PhoneGap. We have provided our own wrapper to the PhoneGap UI (which is a mistake we plan to fix!) but essentially you get PhoneGap + some additional FeedHenry APIs.

We can build iPhone, Android, Blackberry and WP7 binaries. However your best results will be obtained with iPhone and Android as the two UI toolkits we recommend (Sencha Touch and JQuery Mobile) both work best on those platforms.

You should use the GIT integration as this will allow you to write your software using your favourite tools and just use our build system and emulator to generate and test your binaries.

Let me know how you get on.

Joe Drumgoole
VP Product Management
FeedHenry

If

smackyB

Depends on how complex the app is. If it's fairly lightweight then perhaps a cross-platform solution might suit but for anything else native is the way to go. I have yet to come across a closs-platform app that is as responsive and good looking as its equivalent in native code.

As a native Android developer myself I could be biased but I did spend some weeks attempting to develop an app with Phonegap and gave up out of frustration and went back to native!

skateboardP

Thanks for the replies, i'm leaning towards using the feed henry system as we really need to make the app available on all platforms so this is a huge pull factor I think.

Also the fact that you can update the app without having to re-upload for approval is a bonus so I think i'm going to give it a try. If I don't get anywhere fast with it i'll probably just have to go with the native.

smcelhinney

I echo smackyB's comments. Having used most of the major cross-compilers over the past year or so (PhoneGap, Sencha Touch, Appcelerator) I've just started building my own native Android app, and am having so much fun with it. Yes. Fun. Computers can be fun too!

The benefit of starting with cross-compilers IMHO is to get a better understanding of the concepts surrounding native app development such as intents, activities, services, receivers etc. I think diving right into native can be daunting.

Best of luck.

cousin_borat

Completely agree here. FeedHenry is not a great option for developing complex apps. In additon there debiging capabilities on FH is very limited. You have to use 3rd party tools like Weinre.

smackyB wrote: »

Depends on how complex the app is. If it's fairly lightweight then perhaps a cross-platform solution might suit but for anything else native is the way to go. I have yet to come across a closs-platform app that is as responsive and good looking as its equivalent in native code.

As a native Android developer myself I could be biased but I did spend some weeks attempting to develop an app with Phonegap and gave up out of frustration and went back to native!