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InfoQ Homepage News Apportable brings Objective-C to Android

Apportable brings Objective-C to Android

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Apportable offers iOS developers the possibility to publish their software for the Android ecosystem. Programmers can use the Apportable SDK and a set of command line tools to cross-compile their apps without having to apply major changes to the objective-c code base. Alternatively, Apportable also offers the conversion of applications as a service. Amongst the already converted apps, there are well known titles like Osmos (iOS version) or Björks multimedia app Biophilia (iOS version).

Besides cross-compiling existing objective-c sources with the help of simple command line tools, Apportable also grants access to Android specific functionality. Amongst the features of these UIKit extensions are support for hardware buttons, different screen resolutions and information on device hardware and Android version.

Apportable also includes BridgeKit, a library which allows developers to add Java classes to their apps and access native Android functionality. Java classes are accessed via wrapper objects within objective-c which allow to exchange primitive data types between Java and objective-c. It is also possible to define callback methods in objective-c classes that can be called by Java classes.

Apportable released an initial version of its SDK for Xcode 5, but the officially supported Xcode version is still 4.6.3. In case a software project won't cross-compile on Xcode 5, Apportable offers a description on how to downgrade to version 4.6.3 or switch between to versions of Xcode

There are four license levels available starting with a free license for converting apps based on core frameworks like OpenAL, CoreFoundation or CoreGraphics. Depending on the frameworks used in the original application and the level of support needed, there are also licenses for $1.000 and $15.000 per developer and year. There are also special rates for enterprise licenses.

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