What rapid development tool for iPad interactive book.

January 27, 2011 8:47 AM

What iOS development enviroment is suitable for easy creation of an interactive childrens book?

Hi, versions of this question have been posted before but the development landscape for iOS changes very fast so I would like to ask again.

I am considering making an interactive childrens book for iPhone and iPad. Using Objective C is unrealistic for me since I am not a good enough programmer and would like a more rapid devlopent enviroment since this is a hobby for me.

The functionality I need is being able to create an app I can sell on appstore that runs and looks like a native app. At minimum I have to be able to use animation, record/playback audio and set up the story in different "scenes" where the mini games and other interactivity occurs. A nice bonus would be a 2d physics engine.

The ultimate solution for me would be something like the good old macromedia director software that was so popular during the late 90s. I can code too, tt just would be nice to keep the development time as rapid as possible.

I have been looking around different solutions and there seems to be lots since Apple got more relaxed on allowing other dev platforms on iOS.

The ones I found so far.

Unity 3d - I don't need 3d at all. Is this suitable for 2d too or too much?

Corona SDK - Seems to be a bit much programming for my taste. Also seems very limited in setting up "scenes" and moving between them in an easy way. Basically it is an alternative programming language with media functions included.

Gamesalad - Have been told that the apps created by gamesalad are slow. I want mine to be snappy and nice. Also from what i read they seem to force you to use their logo on splashscreen.

Flash - Using flash sounds great if I can use the whole gui development tools. I also was quite an avid user of Flash 5 so maybe I can pick it up faster than the other solutions. However I am a bit concerned of performance and bugs. Also it doesnt seem to be out for iOS development yet.

posted by ilike to computers & internet (3 answers total)

cocos2d for iPhone
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:05 AM on January 27, 2011

If the OP thinks Corona has too much programming, then cocos2D seems like an even bigger stretch. I would recommend a closer look at Corona: it's free to try, and developed by former Adobe engineers to be Flash-like. On top of that, a 14-year-old boy used it to unseat Angry Birds (ymmv).
posted by ikaruga at 10:59 AM on January 27, 2011

Using Objective C is unrealistic for me since I am not a good enough programmer and would like a more rapid devlopent enviroment since this is a hobby for me.

Objective C is actually a lot easier to program than C -- really! But if you go with the web-based kits, you'll probably end up trading rapid development for a slow product. You'll need to do a little programming, anyway, and you'll get a better result from using Objective C. Something to consider.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:01 PM on January 27, 2011