Evaluation of Software Development Packages for Mobile Applications - Research Paper Example

Running Head: ЕVАLUАTIОN ОF SОFTWАRЕ DЕVЕLОРMЕNT РАСKАGЕS FОR MОBILЕ АРРLIСАTIОNS. Student’s Name: Course Code: Lecture’s Name: Date of presentation 1.0 Abstract Mobile user are now adapting to the use of Smartphone due to their extra functionality and services. Smartphones are therefore being adopted in environments where integrity and confidentiality utmost vital. In order to understand the Smartphone, it is prudent to state the three levels of Smartphone software. Mobile apps refer to add-on software developed and installed in handheld devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDA) and smart phones. Some of this add-on software includes social networking, maps, weather, business etc. These features leverage on some of the technical feature of the device such as; cameras, sensors, GPS module, communication interfaces (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiBro/mobile WiMAX, GSM/EDGE, W-CDMA/UMTS). This paper discusses the mobile Operating Systems, programming languages used in developing these add-on software and finally Software Development packages suitable for different Mobile OS’s. An investigation is to be carried out to evaluate some of the Software Development Packages such as eclipse xcod etc. 2.0 Research Significance Information generated from the evaluation of the mobile applications will add knowledge and guideline to both to both program developers and users in mobile phones application. 3.0 Research method In this research an investigation will be carried out on some of the Mobile Operation System and Software development packages (SDK and IDE) applicable apps. An evaluation based on the available literature of the listed packages will be carried out on the basis applicable mobile OS, language of programming used, functions of usage, interfaces, tools and commands. 4.0 Goals and Objectives The main goals and Objectives for carrying out this research is to create a complete assessment for Software Development Packages applicable for mobile applications on best application in different mobile operating systems, and their ease of compatibility with this operating Systems. Operating system (OS): this refers to the platform which acts as the interface between the user and the hardware. It serves as the host the applications run on the Smartphone. It also manages all the applications resources such as devices, memory and files. Some of the OS include Android, Windows Mobile etc. Network Stark: Smartphones posses a stable and robust network stack so as to counter diverse stacks, particularly to counter different attacks, especially those relating to the desktop operating systems Applications: Smartphone have the capacity of new applications such as text editors etc. Table of contents 1.0 Abstract 2 2.0 Research Significance 2 3.0 Research method 3 4.0 Goals and Objectives 3 5.0 INTRODUCTION 6 6.0 PURPOSE 8 7.0 SMARTPHONE OPERATING SYSTEMS (OS) 9 a) Android 10 Dalvik Virtual Machine and Android Applications 12 Android Structure, Java and XMl 12 b) IPhone 13 Programming Language 13 Software Development Kit (SDK) 13 Xcode IDE (Integrated Developer Environment) 14 c. Sympian 15 d. WebOS 17 e. Windows Embedded OS Platforms 18 8.0 Software development packages 18 8.1.Rhomobile 18 8.2.PhoneGap 20 8.3.Mosync 22 8.4. DragonRad 23 10.0 Comparison of the Application Tools 24 11.0 Summary and Conclusion 27 12.0 Works Cited 28 List of Figures ‎4‑1: Android Architecture 11 ‎4‑2:Android Software Environment contains a Linux Kernel, Libraries, Dalvik Virtual Machine, Application Framework and built-in and custom applications. 13 ‎4‑3: A Typical Xcode Basic layout 14 Figure ‎4‑4: Main Menu of the Original S60V3 15 ‎4‑5: Concept of Model- View- Controller 19 ‎4‑6Rhodes Architecture, Indicating Rhodes components and Smartphone device 20 ‎4‑7: PhoneGab Architecture Showing the Different Components used in Development 21 ‎4‑8: layered Interface of PhoneGap 22 ‎4‑9: Mosync Runtime Architecture 23 ‎4‑10: A Schematic representation of the DragonRad Architecture showing the connectivity of the different components 24 5.0 INTRODUCTION Mobile phones and particularly Smartphone are rapidly developing to become the main computer and communication device in the human lives. Mobiles are being are rapidly converted into App phones through the incorporation of application delivery channels for instance the Samsung Play store; which have the capability of downloading a heap of application in an instant. More significantly, mobile phones and other personal digital assistants (PDA) have gradually become ubiquitous devices for both work and leisure. There is a metamorphosis which has transformed the mobile phones from its earlier single purpose voice communication device to a myriad of purposes. Remote access and broad band data transmission is now a reality as well as networking, gaming, music video, mapping, instant messaging and numerous other applications and functions credit ever evolving handheld devices and services (Hall S. and E.). Although Smartphones posses similar functionality as those present in laptops, notebooks and desktops, the operating system used is different from those installed in the personal computers. The key reason for this is the difference in space and energy constraint relating to the special hardware and software requirements. For instance a Smartphone OS may make the hardware device to “hibernate” when not in use so as to save energy (Tabacu). The concept of “mobile apps” has become central in the recent past and has indeed revolutionized into a great impact in the peoples day-to-day life. Mobile has increased the expectations on these devices in that they are no longer used for talking but more important is in running programs such as text- editors and internet programs. The devices are not changing in their physical hardware, but more importantly is the growth and development of the software applications used in running these programs. Therefore, apart from making calls, these Smartphone have gained popularity due to features such as GPS, Camera etc. These in- built features are offered in major mobile Operating Systems Oss such as iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile. All the above listed OS’s are very popular in the market due to their inherent uniqueness. For instance Android operating system is founded on Java programming and is available freely; iPhone offers the best quality features; while Blackberry has been recording higher sales. The competition among theses OS’s is high as the various companies keep on adding new innovative features into their products and feasibility to carry out more research. The basic architecture and support of the programming language used in OS’s is very distinct in each of the OS’s; which compels the developers to develop to build the same application compatible with other OS’s (Hall S. and E.). There is however some cross- platform development kits which deliver native applications which can be installed on all the supported operating system. Such tools are mainly dependent on the web development and programming languages such as Java Script, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and Cascadinf Style Sheets (CSS). The paper will also examine the available key tools in the market for instance Mosync, PhoneGab, Rhomobile and DragonRad. All this application tools offer a cross- platform compatibility and also an architecture based on web services (Kaijalainen). 6.0 PURPOSE The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the Software Development packages used in mobile applications. Smartphones have been regarded as the new generation of mobile phones and hand held devices. As their popularity grows, majority users are now using the various applications accompanied in them. Thus it is imperative to evaluate the communication interfaces used such as Wi-Fi, WiBro/mobile WiMAX, GSM/EDGE, W-CDMA/UMTS/HSPA and Bluetooth. This includes also the programming languages used in these applications. This research proposal seeks to evaluate the Software Development packages (such as eclipse, netbeans, xcod among others which are applicable in the mobile operating system, the applicable programming language, and the nature and simplicity of use of these packages. Development of mobile apps has proved to be lucrative since the emergence of the Apples touch phones family. This has been fuelled largely by the increase in applications and functionality of mobile phones and more specifically the Smartphones. This has created a new level of Smartphones called super Smartphones due to their superb functionality qualities that they posses. In developing these apps a number of programming languages have been adopted. For instance, Silverlight and C# have been used widely in the development of the windows phone, objective C has been the preferred language on Apple mobile platform development. Although the most popular and widely used development platform for mobile apps is \Java, its uniqueness and dominance is threatened in the iPad, iTouch and iPhone devices which do not support Java. 7.0 SMARTPHONE OPERATING SYSTEMS (OS) Smartphones are cell phones which offer more functionality and computational capabilities more than ordinary basic phones. Most of these smartphones have full inbuilt cameras, Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth, embedded GPS system, a all-inclusive user interface for instance touch screen, and an interface for installing new programs and applications. The operating systems used in running the applications in these smartphones are crucial part of the software system. The operation system used therefore needs to be designed with features aimed at making the Smartphone energy efficient, and with less memory footprints with high optimizations. (@#$) introduced some of the common operating system used in the market such as iPhone, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Android and Symbian. According to their argument the subsequent development of Smartphone software is dependent on these operating systems. With the rapid development of Smartphones, global Smartphone demand has been growing especially after the introduction of the iPhone 3GS, Samsung Galaxies, Nexus One and HTC Hero. a) Android This was the premier, open, free and complete mobile phone operating systems with an in-built development platform. This operating system was developed by The open Handset Alliance; a group consisting of over 30 companies championed Google Inc. Driven by the Apach license any developer can utilize Adroid Software Development Kit (SDK) to grow applications to run in Android operating systems. The key thing with Android is the utilization of the common non- proprietary methods and techniques for instance Java in combination with the Extensible Markup Language (XML) (Tabacu). The aim of developing Android Operation System was come up with a flexible and platform feature- rich to entice more application developers so as to improve sales on Android handsets. Android is therefore a set of software used in mobile phones and containing main operating Systems, middleware and the key mobile applications. Android operating System therefore covers diverse features for instance application framework, integrated browser, optimized graphics, and Dalvik virtual machine, media support for audio, image and video format, compass, accelerator, GSM technology, camera, Wi-Fi and rich development platform. Just like other Operating Systems, the architecture of Android possesses a hierarchical structure. It is divided into four distinct layers which are; application layer, framework layer, system layer and Linux runtime core area as shown in the figure below (Broman). ‎4‑1: Android Architecture Application layer: this refers to the layer which shows the set of core applications including, web browser, map application, SMS application, other messaging application and contacts application. Application framework:- this refers to layer of developing applications in Andrioid Operating System and is desiogned to lessen the reuse of the component and thus allowing the user to replace the components Libraries:- this refers to aset of C/C# and C++ libaries adopted at various levels of development of Android Systrem. Android Runtime:- this layer describes the set of key core libraries and Dalvik virtual machine. This core libraries offers the functionalities which are found in Java programming language. Dalvik virtual machine performs like a translateor between Operating system and the applicationaspect of the device. Each android application runs in in its own unique proces, with its illustration of the Dalvik virtual machine. Linux Kernel:- this works like an concept layer between Android software and Smartphone hardware. Android makes use of the Linux version 2.6 for majority of the core system for example network stack, memory management, security, process management and driver model. Dalvik Virtual Machine and Android Applications Each Android application runs on its dinstict Dalvik virtual machine. The advantage of this operating system is that where poor or lack handy features exists, the open sourse community will likely develop a better one. For instance the in- built messaging appliaction can be upgraded by donloading the HandcentSMS from the Android market store, version 3.0.4.The disadvantage of this Android operating system is thaht the application users have to take great care when downloading and installing applications. This can destroy serctions of the Android OS making booting unsuccessful. Another demerit of Android is its openness, making it prone to malware. Android Structure, Java and XMl Android operating system also belong to the Java class library used in creating applications for Android software platform using XML as variuables for instyance integers and strings. XML is also utilized to control the style and layout of an application. The distict layer convection is identical to Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) in terms of content and Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) in terms of style. However, there are distiction in terms of functionalities as unlike JAVA, HTML is not a programming language. From a practical viewpoint, Java defines the basic button functionality, while XML determines text, colour, font size and weight of the buttons as shown in figure below ‎4‑2:Android Software Environment contains a Linux Kernel, Libraries, Dalvik Virtual Machine, Application Framework and built-in and custom applications. b) IPhone iPhone OS refers to an operating system was developed by Apple Inc for use in Touch screen in 2007. The OS was also developed for iPod Music player and iPad tablet. Programming Language IPhone is programmed using the Objective-C programming language. It is an object founded on an extension for C-language with all the architectures of all the C /C++. However the syntax is slightly different. Software Development Kit (SDK) The most significant application development framework tools used in SDK used development of iPhone OS include: iPhone simulator, Xcode IDE. Xcode IDE (Integrated Developer Environment) Xcode IDE is used to program and develop an application by writing a running code. The same tool is used for running and debugging. ‎4‑3: A Typical Xcode Basic layout c. Sympian This refers to a mobile Operating System and also a computing tool developed for Smartphones and runs exclusively on ARM processors. It was released in 2009 and was majorly used Motorola, Sony Ericson and Nokia. Symbian User Interface Symbian was designed to use graphic toolkit known as AVKON, which was manipulated via a keyboard- like interface metaphor. Symbian 3 includes the Qt Framework which is the new user interface toolkit for recent applications. Symbian 4 has some built-in GUI library framework purposely designed for touch- screen based interface called UI Extensions for Mobile. For instance Nokia makes use of QML and Qt Quick- with superior declarative User Interface (UI) for developing visually loaded touch screen interfaces (Kaijalainen). Figure ‎4‑4: Main Menu of the Original S60V3 Browser Symbian 3 had an in-built Webkit founded browser. It was actually the pioneer mobile platform to use the Webkit, other older Symbian versions used the Opera Mobile as the browser. A new brower was released by Nokia with the development of Symbian Anna. Application Development Symbian is developed using standard C++ programming language with the main SDK being Qt. Qt supports older earlier Symbian 3rd. Sybian OS which initially used C++, however newer version of Carbide C++ IDE. Application Development Up to 2010, Symbian was using SDK C++, via Qt. This allows for Qt apps to be compiled to native code for platform development. There are numerous platforms founded on Symbian OS and which offers the Software Development Kit (SDK) for application developers, such as S60 and UIQ. The SDKs store libraries files, header files and other documentation necessary for building Symbian OS software. However, Symbian C++ requires special techniques such as active objects, cleanup stack and descriptors which eventually become a steep learning curve to the developer. Other languages Symbian devices can be developed through other programs such as Java ME, Flash lite, Ruby .Net C/C#. d. WebOS This refers to an open Mobile Operating system that is founded on a Linux Kernel. Various versions have been developed for Veer, Pre, PiXi and Hp TouchPad Tablet. Devices Plam Pre Plus, Palm Pre and Palm Pixi Plus run on WebOS versio 1.4.5 The Veer, Pre 2and 3 are developed to use WebOS version 2.X.X The HP TouchPad runs WebOS version 3.0.X. Interface Navigation makes use of multi-touch movements on the touchscreen, by use of “cards” to handle multitasking on the apps. By flicking across the screen, the application “cards” can be rearranged while WebOS 2.0+ allows for the cards to be “stacked” together. WEBOS Development The latest version is WebOS SDK 3.0.5, which is downloadable and which developers can perform applications for a number of WebOS for HP Touchpad and HP veers. Within the SDk, the developers can access, coding libraries, scripts and utilities and documents which can assist in C/C++ development. Other applications can be developed in JavaScript, CSS, HTML5, e. Windows Embedded OS Platforms This refers to a collection of operating systems and platform tools used in creation of embedded devices with a wealthy set of componentized technologies. Some of the Microsoft Windows OS products include: Windows Embedded Standard, NavReady, Windows NET Embedded. 8.0 Software development packages 8.1. Rhomobile RhoMobile represents a set a collection of products, which offers a framework and basis for cross-platform Smartphone applications. This application offers a Ruby- based development platform, which seeks to manage enterprise data and application. Among the products composed in RhoMobile include; RhoConnect (Intergrate), Rhohub (Deploy) and Rhodes (Develop) and Rhogallery (Manage). These frameworks and tools can be adopted across varios Oerating Systems such Mac, Linux and Windows and Windows Mobile. The main scope of RhoMobiles framework is to offer a high level of portability and productivity during web programming. Development and maintenance of applications are founded on single code- base in all major mobile platforms Android, iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Mobile.; experience in web development is crucial in making mobile application, while it is not necessary to learn the Software Development Kit (SDK) or specific languages of the particular mobile platforms. A lot of the specific applications of the platforms are developed to boost the end- user experience, with work with coordinated local data and other device capabilities such as Camera, Global positioning System (GPS), screen rotation, Barcode etc. Rhodes is the only tool and framework that utilizes Model View Controller (MVC) pattern. Such views are used to perform this applications are written with JavaScript, CSS and HTML. Controllers are developed using Ruby programming language. ‎4‑5: Concept of Model- View- Controller Rhodes development files can be compiled into native executables which can then be executed on either a virtual or real device; thus providing a desktop simulator which makes it possible for the command line tools to interact with the web interface. For instance, the applications can be a times be compiled to create Java bytecode used in Blackberry platform or can be natively executed into Ruby bytecode for execution in other platforms. ‎4‑6Rhodes Architecture, Indicating Rhodes components and Smartphone device RhoMobile also offers an integrated Development Environment (IDE) referred to as RhoStudio which is an ingenious solution assisted the user in developing application via a hosted IDE. This allows the software developers to develop solutions in HTML and Ruby through browser. Majority editors are Visual Studio, Netbeans, Eclipse, Textemate etc. 8.2. PhoneGap This refers to an open mobile development tool d framework which enables developers to create open source, free applications. The cross platforms development environment allows for the development of applications for various OS’s like iPhone, WebOS, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Android, and Symbian. This mobile development application offers key solution for developing cross- platform applications bu utilizing moderm programming languages such as JavaScript, CSS and HTML, thus allowing developers to enclose applications developed using known languages into valid open- source software. The ultimate goal of using PhoneGap is to achieve hybrid applications. PhoneGap architecture is created from a rendering a layout through web-view rather than the native language of platform development hence|”mot purely native”. ‎4‑7: PhoneGab Architecture Showing the Different Components used in Development With PhoneGap, developers need to write the code once and it can run in any of the Mobile Operating Systems. One of the limitations is that, it PhoneGap does not offer a exclusive IDE to develop applications on each of the Mobile OSs; application developers need to execute the source code on different Integrated Developed Environment (IDE), for instance XCode for iPhone and Eclipse for Android. Some of the supported OS’s by Phonegap are Linux, Windows and Mac, however the achieved development is based on the IDEs utilized. The general architecture of PhoneGap consists of interface layers as shown in the figure below. The top layer is called Web Application layer and provides the necessary environment for the creation of the application using the IDE. The second layer shows the Java Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) used for interfacing the Web Application (Source-Code) and JavaScript API. The objective of this layer is to maintain a balance between the JavaScript API and the native APIs particular to each of the Mobile Operating systems, thus allowing an superior functionality of the mobile features such as barcode, Bluetooth, Camera, Network, Screen rotation and memory storage. ‎4‑8: layered Interface of PhoneGap 8.3. Mosync This refers to an open source solution, fully fledged SDK, capable of aiding the developer to create and package every kind of applications. Mosync offers a powerful framework where numerous components can be tightly packed together as Runtimes, Libraries, compilers etc. it has a fully fledged Eclipse- founded IDE which has a unique way of supporting diverse mobile OS’s. Mosync has two distinct architectures specific to each of the Java and C++ languages as shown below. ‎4‑9: Mosync Runtime Architecture 8.4. DragonRad This refers to an cross-Platform mobile application tool and framework that permits the developer to create, manage and deploy the mobile applications. As a cross- platform application, DragonRad permits support and compatibility with majority of mobile Oss such as Android, Blackberry, iPhone and Windows mobile. The application offers the drag and drop interface which helps developers to create logics and save time. DragonRad permits also the synchronization and integration of database system with key functions of the mobile OSs stated above such as contacts, calendars, payments etc. The application framework consists of an emulator tasked with the responsibility of running and debugging the application. ‎4‑10: A Schematic representation of the DragonRad Architecture showing the connectivity of the different components 9.0 10.0 Comparison of the Application Tools This section seeks to evaluate the Software Development packages for mobile applications on the basis of some key attributes such as Application Output, Licenses, Available Languages, and Platform Support. Although this analysis and evaluation is not aimed at concluding the best and bad application tool however, it can assist the reader to fully comprehend and evaluate the suitable development tools and framework according to his/her unique requirements. The evaluation is founded on the consideration that the application tools are able to generate Software Development packages on the major mobile Operating Systems such as iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, WebOS, Symbian etc as shown in the table below. The column on the right show the Operating System supported by the software development packages (IDE and SDK). Table 1: Comparison on mobile platforms compatibility and their respective OS’s support Application Tool Name Mobile OS support OS Supported by IDE RhoMobile iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile Mac, Linux, Windows MoSync iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, JavaME, Symbian, BlackBerry Mac, Linux, Windows PhoneGap iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Symbian, WebOS, Windows Mobile Mac, Linux, Windows DragonRad BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android Mac, Linux, Windows From the information contained in table 1 above, it is easy to conclude that PhoneGap application tool and framework provides more compatibility for development on diverse mobile operating systems , whereas the all the platforms offer the same Integrated Development Platforms (IDEs) hosted in personal computers i.e. Linux, Mac and Windows. In order to provide a comparison, Table 2 shown below gives a better overview Table 2: Comparison of Development Features of Application Tools Application Platform Name Programming Language Access Code IDE Output Application RhoMobile Ruby,HTML, JavaScript, CSS Yes (Via Java Script) RhoStudio, Rhohub Web PhoneGap HTML Yes (Via Java Script) Eclipse, Xcode Web DragonRad D And D Yes DragonRad Designer Native Mosync C, C++ Yes Based on Eclipse Native Table 2 above shows the language field and explains the support of development languages provided by the each platform tool in creation of the application. Most of the languages are available, for instance CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Ruby, C++, C and GragonRad D. the same languages are suitable for the development of both native and web based applications. However, there exists a slight variation in the nature of the output produced by each of the platforms, For instance DragonRad has the capability of producing both types of applications. While the other platforms can only give a single output. Native applications are considered best in terms of performance results while maintaining a low charge of hardware performance. RhoMobile offers diverse solutions such as Rhohub IDE for connection through remote connection and RhoStudio IDE for developing via local connection. Mosync provides IDE based on Eclipse and PhoneRad provides an approach that is applicable on all the native IDEs, for instance some of the native IDEs are, Eclipse for Android, Xcode for iPhone etc. The solutions perform best due to the fact that a native IDE gives a developer a superb development platform unlike Web IDE, where the application is carried out on diverse IDEs. The advance of the case above can be best explained in the following scenario:PhoneGap is an application tool that supports JavaScript, and since this programming languages are not native, the source code used is similar in all the platforms. Therefore, while working with PhoneGap, the developer requires create the application on an IDE and carry out a simple source code porting on the rest IDEs 11.0 Summary and Conclusion The paper seeks to give a comparison between the cross-platform on different mobile operating systems. This kind of information is useful in assisting Smartphone companies in to develop applications designed for their unique markets such as Android play store, Apple market store, etc. to give a logical thread flow of information an insightful description of Smartphone, their Operating Systems, thus helping the reader to appreciate the framework. Mobile operating System and application framework companies are therefore offering the best available resources and knowledge for developing applications in a more efficient and convenient manner. The cross- platform application tools are therefore developed through a particular software developing kit of Smartphone and mobile operating systems. 12.0 Works Cited Broman, P. The runtime architecture. 21 june 2010. 17 June 2013 . Hall S. P. and Anderson E. "Operating Systems for Mobile Computing, ." Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, ISSN:1937-4771 (December 2009.). Kaijalainen, Mikko. "BASIC IPHONE PROGRAMMING Case: Dictionary Application." Information Technology Bachelor’s Thesis (May 2010). P., Timo. "Smartphone Cross-Platform Frameworks,." Bachelor’s Thesis, Jamk University of Applied Sciences,Apr, (2011.). Tabacu, I. "Best Practices in iPhone programming:." Model View Controller archtecture -Carousel Component development, IEEE, (April, 2011). Read More