Preface

Before Titanium, building native mobile applications for multiple platforms meant learning Objective-C/Swift, Java, and C#. As a result, many application developers would specialize in supporting limited platforms, simply because they didn't have the time or skill set to rewrite application code in multiple languages.

Similarly, anyone looking to build an application on multiple platforms would have to employ a multi-skilled developer, or hire multiple developers or agencies to complete the task. This could be expensive, requiring application code to be written multiple times in different languages and environments, and could easily lead to releasing an application on only one platform initially, typically iOS.

The introduction of Titanium changed all this, allowing developers to use the JavaScript language to write cross-platform, native applications for multiple platforms from a single code base.

Titanium's unique approach means that a single developer can write native applications for iOS, Android, and now Windows Phone, targeting the unique features of each platform.

In this book, we'll cover all the aspects of building your mobile applications in Titanium, from visual layout to maps and GPS, all the way through data and social media integration and accessing your device's input hardware, including the camera and microphone. We'll also cover Alloy, the new framework from Appcelerator that allows rapid application development using the MVC (Model, View, Controller) methodology, and intercommunication between apps using URL schemes.

We'll go through how to extend your applications using custom modules, and how to package them for distribution and sale in both the iTunes App Store and the Android Play Store.