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Posts tagged Mono

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iPhone App Development for .NET Developers

Have you been dying to get into iPhone Application Development but scoffed at the learning curve of Objective-C and the Cocoa Touch Framework? It’s true, there is a lot to learn and I am sure as a .NET Developer, specifically a C# Developer you have probably been wishing there was a way to use the language you have grown to love to program for the iPhone.

Unfortunately, the iPhone doesn’t allow JIT Applications to run. This means that no 3rd Party runtimes such as .NET or Java are allowed on the iPhone.

So how can you run a .NET Application on the iPhone?

For a while now Unity3D via Mono was an option but an expensive one.

While Unity3d is a great option for Game Development Companies, it might be a little hefty on the pocketbook for the average Hobbyist Developer or Home Based Startups.

MonoTouch sets to change this by providing first class iPhone Application Development using C# and .NET via XCode or their own MonoDevelop IDE.

Keep in mind that there are limitations to programming for the iPhone using C# and .NET using MonoTouch such as:

  • No Dynamic Code Generation including:
    • Reflection
    • Remoting
  • No COM Bindings
  • Limitations to Reverse Callbacks

As you can tell by clicking around through the MonoTouch web pages, there isn’t much there quite yet. MonoTouch is new and still under development but should prove to be a great way for .NET Developers to take advantage of their existing C# and .NET Skills to Develop for the iPhone and iPod Touch Platform.

Miguel de Icaza has a little tease for us on his blog “Hello from MonoTouch”.

For an iPhone Development Platform that hasn’t even been released yet, MonoTouch has sure set the Development world ablaze today with the promise of things to come.

I for one am looking forward to this 8)

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Filed under iPhone DotNet CSharp Mono