C# & .NET for Smartphone Apps?

Question

Hi guys I'm interested in the possibility of writing aps for Smartphones. I don't have a Smartphone as yet & I was wondering if anyone might be able to tell me if certain Smartphone operating systems allow their apps to be written in C# .NET? I'm guessing that the 'Windows Phone' operating systems would but are Microsoft as accepting of independently written aps the way Apple's App Store is? Do Android Palm WebOS & Apple allow C# .NET programming? As I don't have a Smartphone as yet I hoped to buy one with an operating system that allowed C# programs to be written for it so that I could start writing aps for them. Could anyone offer advice? Thanks very much indeed Dan : )

Karthikeyan Anbarasan · Answer

Dan you could go with Windows phone 7 as priority 1 second with android. And for most of the smartphone we dont need the physical phone in hand to do the development. We have many emulators to use it out to test and upload to the market. The reason why i placed android as 2nd option is you can use C# to code for droid mobiles using the monodroid.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Note that you would have gotten most and probably all your questions answered by looking in the articles in this web site and by searching the forums. Really; have a look. In fact there are some (or all) chapters from a book by Charles Petzold; do you know who he is? The book is about Windows Mobile 7 development. That will occupy some time and answer many questions. Charles Petzold is the guy that wrote one of the original books about classic Wndows programming and the most popular one. I have one suggestion to make that might not be mentioned elsewhere. Smart phones have a different (tablet-style) interface than a desktop and even a laptop. If you are not familiar with their use then it can be frustrating trying to use an emulator.

Vulpes · Answer

Yes Microsoft's 'Marketplace' is the equivalent of Apple's App Store Third party developers have to register before they can submit their apps for approval by Microsoft who have similar rules for publication as Apple.

Vulpes · Answer

Now it's out of beta Monodroid has been renamed Mono for Android 1.0 (see http://mono-android.net/ ). If you don't have a Mac then it's a better proposition than Mono Touch IMO though you still have to fork out $399 for a licence ($99 if you're a student) even if you're not interested in commercial development but just want to write apps for your own phone. Still you can't blame Novell for wanting to make some money out of this stuff as Mono itself is still free.

John Penn · Answer

For iPhone development you'll have to use a Mac. More details are at monotouch.net.

John Penn · Answer

You can write iPhone apps in C# with MonoTouch.

Dan · Answer

Thanks guys all info welcome : )

Sam Hobbs · Answer

My comment about the tablet-style interface was intended to refer to testing; how you use the simulated device. I downloaded and installed the Android SDK and I had problems testing the program just because I did not know how to use the device as an emulated device. For example the language was set to something I could not understand; Chinese or something totally unrecognizable to me. I could not change the language; I found where to change it but then I could not get the change to be applied. So you can do most development without an actual real device but my comment was meant to indicate one small limitation of the emulator. That is that it helps to have a little experience with the actual device.

Vulpes · Answer

It's a pity that Charles Petzold's 'Programming Windows Phone 7' e-book which has been reproduced in instalments on this site isn't also available in printed form for those who don't like reading 1000 page books from the screen. I downloaded the pdf version onto my Amazon Kindle but reading technical books on that device is not a pleasant experience and I might have to invest in an IPad2 or an Android Honeycomb tablet instead - hardly an outcome that Microsoft would like :)

Dan · Answer

Thanks Sam I did have a quick scout of the Forum's before I posted perhaps not enough though... Thanks very much in pointing me towards that information that's brilliant. I hadn't actually heard of Charles Petzold before now to be honest - I don't know if that's the equivalent of programmer blasphemy I'm still fairly new to the development racket : ) I was aware of the smart phone tablet-style touch interface I had thought that it would probably just be a case of responding to events though in the same way as responding to user input in standard forms can be done through the 'MouseMove' and 'MouseClick' events? Anyway thanks very much again for pointing me towards further information Dan : )

Dan · Answer

Hi Vulpes That's excellent thanks very much indeed my friend. All questions answered : ) Regards Ben : )

Dan · Answer

Thanks guys that's brilliantly helpful. I've checked those links out as well : ) The info you've passed over is exactly what I needed to know thank you : ) My second question is that if designing an app for Windows Phone 7 do Microsoft have pretty much the same way of going about things as Apple? So for example I understand that Apple have an approval process & if your app is deemed good enough they'll stick it up on the App Store even you're just an independent programmer working from your bedroom. Is this the same with Microsoft? Thanks again it's been a really really brilliant help : ) Dan : )

Karthikeyan Anbarasan · Answer

Nice john... I have never heard of Monotouch... What basic system requierments required to use monotouch?