This first chapter covers the installation of Titanium and associated tools needed to create and test cross-platform apps. By the end of this chapter you will have created a simple app that will run without modification on iOS and Android phones, and tablets.

Congratulations! Give yourself a pat on the back; you have taken a big step towards creating great apps that work on both iOS and Android. You have made a very wise choice. The Titanium application from Appcelerator allows you to design native apps, apps that run on the device itself and not via a browser or over the Internet. Furthermore, a Titanium app is written in JavaScript, which if you have not used before, is a really nice, flexible language to write code in. It's certainly not just a language for making small scripts in a browser which is what it is commonly known for.

You will be using tried and tested functionality. Appcelerator started releasing apps to the Apple App Store in 2009. Since then over 50,000 apps have been deployed to both iOS and Android stores including flagship apps from eBay and NBC. The company has attracted over $50 million of funding from venture capitalists who have seen the potential. You will be supported by both the company and an ever-growing group of nearly 500,000 registered developers. With support for HTML5 web apps and plans to support both Blackberry 10 and Windows 8 later this year, the case for success becomes stronger and stronger.

You have shown an interest in the best tool for creating cross-platform native apps; apps that can make use of the features of the dominant smartphone and tablet platforms. This book will take you from the initial installation of the tool right through to the publishing of a polished app.

By the end of this book you should be able to publish quality apps through both the Android and iOS stores. This book will not teach you to program in JavaScript, but that should not concern you. If you have programmed in other programming languages, then JavaScript will not be alien to you. Some of the more specific language elements such as events and callbacks will be covered in the book. Should you need a reference, I would highly recommend you to look at some of the articles written by the godfather of JavaScript, Douglas Crockford (http://javascript.crockford.com/). Be aware that most Titanium apps can be programmed using only a small subset of the features provided by the language.

This first chapter covers the following: