what are the main limitations of titanium as a mobile development platform?

Question

I intend to start an iphone/android project with the titanium SDK for mobile. Do you know what are the main feature-wise pitfalls to avoid ? what sort of features will be very hard or impossible to achieve ?

I understand that there is a plugin system to circumvent these limitations. Do you have information on that ?

Thank you for your help,

Jerome Wagner

Answer 1

I have yet to find a particular piece of Android functionality that is missing from Titanium. Not sure if widgets are in the current 1.5.1 mobile release or are coming in 1.6. In any case, the coverage is pretty decent, as you will see if you try out the "kitchen sink" app.

But here are some things I find lacking:

• Titanium's Android support is still much buggier than iPhone support. For instance, I can't get global events to work properly--that's pretty important functionality.
• documentation isn't complete; the API docs are skimpy
• you're on your own; Appcelerator employees don't bother to answer questions online (even when they concern obvious bugs on their end), unless you subscribe to a support plan

That said, I've found developing Android apps with Titanium to be much more enjoyable than dealing with the Android SDK!

Answer 2

I agree with most of what @Drew stated above.

The API documentation is for the "most part" pretty complete, yes there are a few missing pieces, but hey the framework is free, they push releases pretty frequently and all the source code is available for you to go through yourself. You also have full access to the Continuous Integration Builds

I believe the 1.6.0 release has addressed additional issues with Andorid support, there is also a bug tracking system for you to investigate and report issues.

You are not on your own any more than with any other similar framework... Occasionally employees will review specific issues that show up in the Q&A Forum but the forum is very active and there is tons of community support. I would be surprised if you could write most of an application from just cutting and pasting from the Q&A questions and you will find the rest in the Kitchen Sink Example or Tweetanium Example Projects.

Answer 3

You asked about a plugin system. Titanium offers the ability to develop your own custom native modules.

The Titanium's Module Developers Guide (PDF) isn't the best, but it will get you started.