Actually, the situation is pretty bad for developers. Making a client for all major platforms (iOS, Android, blackberry and now wp7) is difficult. Every client must be built from ground up. Different languages, different tools. Not bad in the sense of plurality and choice, of course, and I love learning new stuff. But it is difficult and time-consuming.
Well too bad MS once again is lacking on the browser side. Devs cannot even target WP7 on the browser, I will not develop non-HTML5 mobile sites. Fuck that, WP7 phone users will not be able to use my sites.
Moreover for little startups or single developers might be impossible. I was a Mac developer and now I am an iPhone developer because I already knew and liked the language and the frameworks.
For the project I'm working on right now I have to develop an iPhone app and an iPad one, plus a server to handle data, a Mac app to create the particular content we need and a Mac client to upload and handle the data on the server.
I am already overwhelmed by work (and I have a day job too) and in no way I can learn/program on another platform right now, especially because our app will be animation intensive and there is no easy way of doing this at least on Android.
In the future, if we are successful, we might move to other platforms as well, but for now I will just leverage the platforms I know.
>>I am already overwhelmed by work (and I have a day job too)
[Offtopic] Can you tell me how you keep both a day job as well as develop for iPhone, iPad and Mac? My mind always shunned the idea of working like this thinking that I'd burnout juggling so many responsibilities! Also, how do you balance your life with this much work?
Anyway I can tell you how I manage right now.
First, I try to waste as less time as possible. I'm 20 minutes biking from work, and usually 15 minutes from anywhere else. Biking saves me a lot of commuting time, because I don't have to rely on public transportation.
I start working at 9, but I wake up at 6. So each morning I get a couple of hours to work on my project. This implies of course that I have to go to sleep early in the evening, so I usually go to bed at 10 to have the sufficient amount of sleep, which is crucial to stay productive.
I'm now in the proceeds to buy a house (with a mortgage). The main reasons to buy a house still apply, but I have some more: living in my own house will mean I will not have to deal with a landlord, and this will give me some more time. Moreover living alone (now I have flatmates), I will pay someone to clean the house instead of doing it myself. I value my time more than the money cleaners ask. Washing machine for clothes, dishwasher for dishes and I don't iron clothes at all (if you learn how to hang them it's almost useless). And there are the weekends, of course.
To avoid the burnout, I made up some rules: no work in the evenings, so when I go home from work and I'm tired I don't have the pressure on myself and I can spend those 2 hours after dinner relaxing. On friday I dance tango, on weekends I usually go to parties or out with friends. I go running for one hour every weekend. This gives me a quite satisfactory life, so I don't burn out.
Thanks for the reply! We have so many things in common right from the commute (I use a bike too) to the sleep schedule (I wake up at 5 though ;) But there's where it ends - Unlike you, I waste a lot of my time. It seems that you work only 1 or 2 hours on your side project- Is it all that's needed? (sorry for omitting your server app!)
To avoid the burnout, I made up some rules: no work in the evenings, so when I go home from work and I'm tired I don't have the pressure on myself and I can spend those 2 hours after dinner relaxing. On friday I dance tango, on weekends I usually go to parties or out with friends. I go running for one hour every weekend. This gives me a quite satisfactory life, so I don't burn out.
It seems that you work only 1 or 2 hours on your side project- Is it all that's needed?
Of course I would like to have more time to spend on this, but that's all I can afford for now. That's why I try to squeeze all the time I can out of my life.
There are also the weekends, do not forget it. Usually I manage to work at least one of the two days if I do not go on a trip, so there are a lot of hours in it too.
We put our deadline on april 2011 though. The technical part will be ready sooner probably, but there is a lot of work to do on the creative side too. Writing a comic is really difficult, my friend has a job too and it involves other people too (drawers, colorists, translators, etc.)
