“Hello World”

About two years ago I said goodbye to my old good Nokia’s set of phones who served me well since 1996, and bought a new HTC G1, “The first Android device”, the “Dinosauroid”.
The G1 was my first smart phone.

As a developer I was fascinated with this ‘new world’ of applications. Small, simple and focus to serve a specific task/target. The games were simple too and went back to the “roots”; remind me my good old Commodore 64 days. A game doesn’t have to have an amazing and sophisticated 3D graphic world, they can be very small, simple – and fun!

From a developer point of view, it is a real opportunity, like going back about 20 years ago, where a single developer have the ability to create a successful and popular app/game.
Arguably the web flash games did the same (for games), but for my opinion there are two major differences:
1. for a gamer, in most cases smart phones will deliver much better gaming experience compare to a game runs on a PC browser. Some will even say that mobile phones will kill the handle console devices – if not changing them dramatically (like the coming Sony’s PSP phone).
2. Without the concept of a market place, It is harder to be found and of course harder to make money out of it.

From the very first days with my G1, I played around with the idea of develop a mobile app. So far did nothing. First I didn't have a specific idea that would make me want to start. Second, as a full time father and a BizTalk/middleware developer, who lives in Microsoft world, I didn’t want to ‘spend’ my precious free time  with learning Dalvik Java or Objective C or any C/C++ graphics.

It is true that now with windows mobile 7 I could have find my ‘natural place’, but I don’t feel like developing to it, yet.
First, it is just started. There are not enough devices/users/code samples/best practices/engines/etc’ yet (some other may say that it is a good opportunity as there are not a lot of apps too) . Second, although I know .Net, I am a middleware developer and not very familiar with WPF and Silverlight , so given the fact I would have to learn, I am not sure if I want to learn Silverlight. Third and the main one, Personally I prefer not to develop games/apps that will run on a single mobile OS (true for all of them).

Today, mobile devices development becomes easier, thanks to all the rapid development frameworks and open libraries available. I thought that if it is really easy and fun - I may give it a try.
During the last few weeks I have been looking into few of them – played, learn and 'felt' them.
Wanted to check how really easy it is, and to understand the disadvantages of each platform/method.
The journey was very interesting and I think I have found my way (and while looking for a platform I have found an idea for a game as well).

As I am sure I am not going to be the last developer that walked/walking/will walk on this same path, I thought it would be better to share my experience (and have a nice thing to do on my daily train commuting :) ).

Enjoy my new Blog,
Roni.