These Days Labs

Appcelerator Titanium is an open source mobile application development tool for iPhone and Android which allows you to code apps with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I tested out the platform this morning. Having developed an iPhone application with Objective C before, I can tell you that Titanium makes the iPhone development process a whole lot easier. Getting the Android SDK working was a bit tricky but development itself is simple. I love being able to compile native applications by writing standard web code!

Here’s an example of just how easy it can be:

Code for a simple Titanium App

The Titanium app in iPhone

The Titanium app in Android

Getting the Andriod emulator installed correctly can be a real pain. After you have downloaded the Android SDK, open the Android SDK and AVD Manager and make sure you install all of these:

• Android SDK Tools
• SDK Platform Android 1.5, API 3
• Google APIs by Google Inc., Android API 3

In your Titanium Developer profile, set the Android API location to /Applications/android-sdk-mac_86. Also, I found the Android emulator to be frustratingly slow, but I don’t think that’s Titanium’s fault.

To create useful mobile applications I think it would be a good idea to start with the following:

• Userstand the role of windows and views in iPhone applications,
• Download and browse the Kitchen Sink application to get an idea of the UI components available in Titanium.

I have included some screenshots of the Kitchen Sink application built in Titanium below so you can get an idea of what can be done.

Slider UI

Entering text input

Saving data on the device