I wanted to learn how to build mobile apps, so last weekend I bought Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript: Making App Store Apps Without Objective-C or Cocoa. I don’t have any problem learning a new language, in fact I really enjoy it, but I was reluctant to to pay serious dollars for a Mac just to learn the skill.
The book covers how to build a website that is tailored for the iPhone. It looks and behaves like an iPhone app, but is actually a website. After a few chapters I started to feel dirty. It documented hack after workaround after hack.
The more I thought about it, the more I realised that the iPhone isn’t the platform for me. Apple’s AppStore is a great marketplace with real opportunities, but I don’t feel like investing hundreds of hours of development time into an application only to have Apple deny my submission. The guidelines are inconsistently applied and apps get regularly rejected for no valid reason.
Besides, I don’t own a Mac so I would have to lay out several thousand dollars before I could even start.
In the end I returned the book and swapped it for Android Wireless Application Development because Android offers a truly open market, and I can build for it using the hardware I already own.