Tersus: Tersus and iPhone

Tersus and iPhoneDate: Mar 5, 2009We've just released Tersus 1.3.6, the first version of the platform that officially supports iPhone applications. This is a good time to discuss our understanding of the key requirements from a mobile application development platform. These insights are guiding our development efforts.Ease of developmentBefore iPhone, mobile application development required specialized platforms (Bru, J2ME, Symbian), and was limited to relatively few developers.
iPhone changed that in 2 ways:

Thanks to its full fledged browser, you can develop web applications in a standard way and have them run on iPhone

If you're a Mac developer, you can create native applications for iPhone while working in a familiar environment.

Tersus already makes it very easy to develop iPhone web applications. We are now working on doing the same for native iPhone applications.Access to device featuresA key requirement for a mobile development platform is the ability to access device features like location information (GPS), local storage, camera, etc.
Mobile web applications are currently limited in this respect. This is one of the key reasons we are giving a high priority to the development of native iPhone applications with Tersus.Ease of deploymentWith desktop applications, you can create, test and run the applications on your own computer. For mobile applications this is not as easy:

For a mobile web application, you need to deploy your application on an internet server

For a native mobile application, you need to package the application in the appropriate format and transfer it to the mobile device

For web applications, the Tersus Quick Hosting feature makes deployment a no hassle process. For native iPhone applications, we'll perform the appropriate packaging.Cross-platform developmentiPhone is cool, but other devices are catching up. We want our applications to run on any mobile device, with little or no modifications.
For web applications, this is easy. As more mobile devices get powerful web browsers, we'll make the minor changes required in Tersus to support them.
As for native mobile applications – we're starting with iPhone, but will support additional platforms over time. Basic applications should work the same across platforms, but some aspects, like window size and specific device features, may require tuning for specific devices.Transition from web applications to native applicationsFor both developer and user, it makes a lot of sense to start with a web application. Users can begin using the web application right away.
Still, there are good reasons to also develop a native version of your application:

Faster loading

Access to more device features, including location information and local storage

Offline availability

Once Tersus supports the creation of native applications, the transition from web to native will be practically seamless. Ofer & YouvalSee Also:

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