revMobile: Develop for the iPhone without Objective-C

[runrev]

Hi. Please pardon the intrusion but I hope this post will be interesting/relevant to this forum. I'm from RunRev, and we make an application called Rev for creating cross-platform software.

We have just released the iPhone pre-alpha of our new mobile app development tool, revMobile. Using this pre-alpha, one of our developers created a simple multi-touch game for the iPhone in 3 hours and 16 minutes. You can see this game right through from concept to finished article in our Youtube video.

A descendent of technologies such as Apple's HyperCard, one of Rev's main strengths is its natural, English-like syntax and the speed at which software can be developed, and then deployed to Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from a single application. We also have a browser plug-in for creating rich Internet applications that run in the web browser, and we're now turning our attentions to the mobile platform.

You can read more about revMobile at our site, and you can follow some of the basic tutorials to get started using Revolution to develop for the iPhone from our Lessons portal.

We hope you don't mind us letting you know about our product on this forum: we believe it will provide an interesting new iPhone development option and make the platform even more accessible, particularly to those who don't already know Objective-C.

 

[flyingember]

have any apps using this system been approved for the store?

because this sounds like an interpreter which is forbidden

 

[samuelliebz]

Why woud it be forbidden? It looks very useful to speed things up? If it gets to theh same end but a lot faster I dont see why that would be an issue

 

[runrev]

have any apps using this system been approved for the store?

The launch date for the final product is targeting November of this year, and the current pre-alpha release does not allow for deployment to the app store (though you can deploy to your testing devices). Later test versions and the final version will allow submission to the app store. The product price that users pay now includes access to the pre-alpha, alpha and beta versions, and the final shipping version of revMobile as well as some other benefits.

because this sounds like an interpreter which is forbidden

The shipping version of the software (targeted for November) is not an interpreter, it will compile during the development process to native iPhone code, and as such apps created using it will be compliant with Apple's policies and App store rules. See our iPhone FAQ for more details

 

[timchen]

I heard that adoble flash is going to release for iphone, too!
this is another way for non-objective-c app dev in iphone

 

[runrev]

I heard that adoble flash is going to release for iphone, too!
this is another way for non-objective-c app dev in iphone

This is true, we will be compiling to native code in the same fashion that Adobe plan to with Flash. However Rev is much better suited to full application development. Its probably better to consider that Rev is "an application development environment which incorporates multimedia", rather than "a multimedia authoring tool centered around a timeline". In other words, revMobile is focused around the construction of full iPhone applications. In addition we believe our development language revTalk is much easier-to-use than Flash's ActionScript. revMobile also offers deployment to other mobile platforms such as Windows Mobile and Maemo.

 

[runrev]

Further, here's an update to the revMobile pre-Alpha news:

? We currently have a package of benefits on offer including free access to the Simulcast and DVDs from our Conference in San Jose this November, which are a great resource for getting to grips with the revTalk language and revMobile itself. These are only free benefits with revMobile until the 31st March. Find out more here

? We have begun a series of video tutorials on using revMobile and the various iPhone features, which are a great insight into the ease of the language and product for iPhone development. These tutorials can be found on the revMobile site and also on our Youtube channel

? Our iPhone pre-Alpha has reached its sixth release, adding bug fixes but also access to two new iPhone features, Core Location (GPS) and Mail sending, as well as orientation detection. These features will be covered in our video tutorial series in the coming weeks.

? We're running a competition to submit your best iPhone App or game built with revMobile, with the best App winning an Apple iPad - check out the details here