Proposed Mission statement for a Subsim app
 

I have for some time thought about an app for Subsim and below is my idea

Platform
Android
iOS

Goal
The current website is not easy to navigate on a mobile device, so an app that makes Subsim more easy to access on the road using a smartphone.
The key is that it should bring value.
Example of not adding value: The current Facebook app for android is big, slow and does not realy add anything, that the mobile browser version of Facebook has.

My thoughts
2 menu buttons in the top under a logo.
1 for Subsim news
1 for list of forums (user should be able to tailor that list)


I have checked and its very easy to get an app on Google Play (Formarly knows as Android Market) Just need to pay a one time fee of 25$ and have a google account.
I have no idea of the cost for Apple.

Development platform
For Android its Java (http://developer.android.com/index.html), but there seems to be options to build in HTML as well.
The software for Android is all free and the link above takes you through all the steps for getting into a position where you can start coding/designing.

I dont know Java (just bought the Android development for dummies basicly), but I hope that somebody out there will be willing to give the coding a go.

If possible, we should do this in a way, so its easy to publish the code on different platforms.

Let me hear your thoughts!

Development cost for Apple is $99 a year.

You'll find that Apple will likely reject a Subsim app if it is just a way to access the forums. Apple requires that your app be more than just web content.

There are software kits out there that will let you build an app in Javascript and HTML and will then wrap it in native code ready to be submitted to the relevant App stores, so if you don't know Java (Android) or Objective C (iOS) then this might be a good route to go down.

I thought of this too as an option. Do you have any links to share? I'm looking for a place to start...

http://phonegap.com/
I have personally never used it before though

http://www.sencha.com/products/touch is one I've been investigating recently.

I figured out that it can be done in an android app and I can find the code, but don't know how to call that code from the tabbed view...

I have lots of iOS development experience and some Android.

But it sounds like what is needed here is a mobile optimized site? I will try and post more thoughts later, but I can't think of a compelling reason for a native subsim app right now?

PD

That might be the case, depending what can be done.
What I had mind as a simple but good solution was:
1) enable the news for mobile view
2) enable forums for mobile view
Then embed links to these in an app.

The layout could be 2 tabs in the top : news and forums.
Selecting news would show the news below the tabs.

I have tried out

http://xamarin.com/monoforandroid

The advantage is you have a superior language (C#) and library (.NET) and can write your backend for all mobile platforms (Silverlight ->Windows Phone 7.1, Mono->Windows 8, iOS and Android)...that is you only need to build the UI (views) for each platform.

The disadvantage is that there is no free edition, that is license costs are pretty high...(not for Windows platforms, since there is the free Visual Studio Express edition available).

I have done some very small apps on Java/Android for personal usage...it is a productive (and free) environment but the main issue is that Java is quite inferior to C# (if you know C# well) and you cannot easily port the code to other mobile platforms.

Frankly, I do not fully understand the scope of your ideas. I mean I have a tablet+smartphone (Android) and have no issues (especially using the tablet) in navigating the subsim page...I understand that it is not comfortable to navigate on a smartphone but do a lot of people browse subsim on a phone? Do not know, I am not ;).

Well there seems to have a great deal of interest in Tapatalk to read the forums, so I guess there's a market.