what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB apps

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tj1010
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Re: what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB

Post by tj1010 »

Fred wrote:Even JAVA apk can be easily decompiled and snooped around. When optimized, a Spider app is hard to read and follow. You can still apply some JS obfuscator if you want to protect it a bit, but client side apps will never really be protected.
ProGuard is supposedly the top obfuscator for APK format and even they are defeated on a daily bases..

With JS obfuscation you can usually just run it through a beautifier and at worse rename functions and rebuild strings. You'll never see anything like a VM(what makes protectors like SecuROM and Denuvo so strong for the most part) language used in a JS obfuscator. At worse a lot of "junk" code that proxies original functions.

Something better: Put a vital part in another apk and run it through the Android Intent API but have the download behind a server authentication. Add some checks under obfuscation on the streamed apk to make defeat more expensive. Maybe make the streamed apk a service that communicates with the potentially compromised APK through the the service API that lets sandboxes access each other.

All it takes is one skilled person though they could easily rebuild a single APK with the streamed APK loaded from inline resource and all checks patched etc..
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Re: what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB

Post by Rinzwind »

LiveCode? No not for iOS. It lacks ANY decent looking control and is slow. Low latency sound support is nowhere to be found. The language... well lets say its different. I coded some app for iOS and Windows with it, but the product seems to be not evolving: except for unicode support its still the same as 10 years ago. That unicode stuff made performance worse. Seems every new version is slower. No controls on iOS except ugly motiv thingies. O and the price went up and up and they keep begging for more... Not sure how healthy the organization is and they put energy into the wrong things. The datagrid control is now so slow its useless (made in LC, not native)... and not really friendly to use...

Looking into Xojo right now. They do have a decent free lecture book which any programmer can quickly skip through to see whats it about.

Lua is also very interesting and can and is used to make many game apps (as in programmed in Lua, not just using Lua as scripting engine).
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Re: what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB

Post by Rinzwind »

B4i / B4A / B4J it is. They have a promotion for a couple of days. 40% discount. Maybe useful to others.
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Re: what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB

Post by Paul »

B4A (Basic for Android) is now FREE for anyone wanting to do some serious mobile development for Android devices...
https://www.b4x.com/b4a.html
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Re: what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB

Post by the.weavster »

Paul wrote:B4A (Basic for Android) is now FREE
Happy days :D
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Re: what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB

Post by Fred »

Looks like a great tool
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Re: what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB

Post by FlatEarth »

Paul wrote:is now FREE
Hope this day arrives for PB. :D
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Re: what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB

Post by deeproot »

I've been using B4A since it came out and also it's predecessor B4PPC before that - it is indeed a great tool and makes a pretty good partner with PureBasic for the desktop progs.
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Paul wrote:is now FREE
Hope this day arrives for PB. :D
Previously B4A was not expensive but did need periodic payment for support and updates. The one-off PureBasic cost is about the nearest thing to being already FREE 8) - I guess for most of us the day arrived some time ago :mrgreen:
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Re: what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB

Post by the.weavster »

Paul wrote:B4A (Basic for Android) is now FREE
I had quite a long play with B4A yesterday. I like the IDE and the syntax but it seems to make quite a trauma of device rotation :?

I'd rather stick with SpiderBasic and try to persuade Fred to come up with some nice new Gadgets (accordian, sidebar, a better grid, ... :wink: ).
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Re: what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB

Post by yoxola »

Hmmm .... English?
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Re: what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB

Post by IdeasVacuum »

I think Spider Basic should be seriously considered, given it's similarity with PB.

You might however like to try App Inventor (MIT), Thunkable, Kodular.
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Re: what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB

Post by the.weavster »

yoxola wrote:Hmmm .... English?
Was that for me? I'll have you know I'm very good at Englishing :wink:

If you want to know B4A's problem with device rotation it destroys your screen and constructs a fresh one.
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Re: what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB

Post by IdeasVacuum »

If you want to know B4A's problem with device rotation it destroys your screen and constructs a fresh one.
That is essentially what they all do really - care to elaborate as to why B4A's method isn't good?
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Re: what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB

Post by Paul »

the.weavster wrote: If you want to know B4A's problem with device rotation it destroys your screen and constructs a fresh one.
Yes, I think B4A's method works just fine. With the added ability to have a specific layout for both Portrait and Landscape and also for specific resolutions as well (phone vs tablet) allowing your app to look good and function properly on any device.
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Re: what language to use for Android/iOS versions of our PB

Post by Rinzwind »

SpiderBasic seems to mimic very classic desktop GUI.

It copies the limitations of PB gadgets, including things like no out-of-the-box sorting and reordering of table columns. On PB that's a pain which still isn't solved, when using JS table frameworks the problem should simply not exist in the first place because the framework supports it...
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