Porting to Windows Phone 7 from iPhone

Question

If you tried to do this, what would be the main factors that could be considered, light / hard parts, pitfalls?

Answer 1

Jeff.

The problems you are facing include a shift in the base pattern from MVC to MVVM, but this is not as radical as it might seem. In the new development environment, you will work with a new language and new language features.

There are several pitfalls along the way, especially the different meanings of essential terms, such as an interface, delegate, etc.

To solve this problem, I started a series of tutorials called "iPhone Developer Guide for Windows Phone 7 Programming", which you can find on my blog

The good news is that the developer tools are free, and there is a lot of documentation, both official and community, with much more coming every day. The release of the developer code version will be released on September 16 (although you can start right now with the beta code). My first tutorial talks about how to get everything you need.

Good luck and let me know if I can help.

-jesse

Thanks.

Answer 2

The real problem you are facing is this: the design paradigms are completely different. One Windows Phone 7 you should have these long bands of data that the user can only partially see - on the iPhone it is more like navigating a data hierarchy. If you are really trying to create an application, as soon as you have an application that looks out of place on one or more platforms.

Answer 3

This is just a new language, a new API, and another platform provider. What could go wrong?

If you give more detailed information about which application (and its key features) you would like to port, we could give you a slightly more specific answer.

Answer 4

First, see MonoTouch . This can save you a bit of heartache, because you can save the main application code in one language, if you are extremely disciplined to make sure that the api platform does not leak into the core of your application.

But yes, what Albin said.

Answer 5

I think this is a great question with a very direct answer.

For me, I believe that the user interface is so small that they are practically thrown away, in particular, on a mobile device, where advanced feature sets are usually less than practical and simple solutions that bring cravings to the consumer.

Of course, there may be considerations about the mismatch of functions on both sides, which is likely to become a problem over time. Often there are different ways to get closer to things if you encounter a mismatch, and it is important for you that your application gets a wider consumer reach across multiple platforms.

So, in my summation, considerations come down to this. Just do it if the platform seems to be worth your effort to invest. This will depend on you and your goals, your application and its goals, as well as how much momentum the respective platforms will create. Individual choice for the most part.

Remember that all your investments can be saved in your choice of server technologies, which for the most part are independent of the client platform. Assuming your application even needs a server.

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This issue will also be discussed in detail by Jesse Liberty on his iPhone blog for Windows Phone 7 .