The Marmalade SDK, previously known as the Airplay SDK, is a cross platform application development kit and game engine to test, develop and deploy applications for mobile devices. This follows the basic principle of a cross platform development tool of write once, run anywhere. This way, development for multiple platforms can be carried out in one shot. This is achieved using a C++ API which acts as an abstraction layer for the core API of each platform.
The latest version of Marmalade, Marmalade 7.4 has seen a lot of improvement. Here is a compilation of all the major changes this platform will see.
- Windows 8.1 Platform Support : Application developers can now take advantage of features of Windows Phone 8.1 extending the usage and functionality of the app.
- iOS 8 and XCode Support : You can now update and submit Marmalade apps ahead of public release and use the latest XCode IDE.
- In-App Purchase Support for Roku : This update facilitates the monetization of Roku apps.
- Web Support for Firefox
- Facebook Support
This release fires up the age old debate of native vs cross platform app development. Cross platform app development today allows apps to be developed at an unbelievable speed. In addition to catering to a number of platforms, these development tools provide a number of built in functionality to reduce the length and complexity of programming.
Application development has come a long way and cross platform application development seems to be the way forward for the industry.
