iOS exporters a sad situation.

I have in my hands a completed game that with PhoneGap is able to pull 40fps with 80 objects on screen.

It supports Game Center, IAP and iADs.

The problem is that is currently using around 99% of the phone resources, on iPad (3rd generation) I get 3fps and on older iPhones 10-15fps with battery drain.

Basically I cannot publish it.

I know that some of you will now say: AppMobi! CocoonJS!

But currently they don't support iOS properly and are closed source (no, I won't even consider the mess that is the "open source direct canvas").

Currently making money on the Play Store is very very hard, I can't give you the exact data as I would violate the appstore TOS, let's just say that my published "game" sold more than 50 times more on iOS than Android.

For any game to be even considered in the AppStore, requires polish, and especially requires compatibility with Game Center and other advanced features of iOS for monetization and user experience.

PhoneGap has an insane amount of very well made plugins that supports almost anything you can imagine, and are easy to integrate with Construct through the callJS plugin. On the other hand we have two closed solutions that tries to push cloud services that are sometimes in violation of the AppStore policies (eg. remote updating).

I don't want to sound harsh, because AppMobi gives a very big acceleration to games, it's just that I don't see the next Angry Birds gets published on any of these platforms, not because the tech isn't there, just for the lack of customization options.

I think that Scirra here has an opportunity to seize the moment and create their own iOS wrapper just like ImpactJS is doing (this is how). There are seriously tons of people that are waiting for an alternative to UIWebView built into the PhoneGap system. Or at least a solution like the one implemented for Impact that can support plugins like PhoneGap. I don't have the time to develop something like this, and even if I did, it would still require Scirra support to make it work.

Ashley, will you ever consider dedicating your time to something like this?

And all the others, what are your thoughts about this issue?

Having good performance on ios would be a good bonus.

I choose to believe in CocoonJS because I think its easier to throw together customization options than to optimize PhoneGap so drastically. I believe as time goes by the situation with these 3 solutions will improve, and we'll have something good to work with.

I don't think Scirra should spend their time working on its own solution for this <img src="smileys/smiley18.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Rory I agree to a certain extent, but the reality is that the CocoonJS build service is MIA, and their container didn't get approved by Apple (which is not a good sign as they might be linking to private libraries), when I'll see the service online and ready I'll believe it too, meanwhile I' searching for a fallback solution..

Writing our own wrapper is just about beyond our resources at the moment, although it's not out of the question. I would only consider it as a last-ditch effort if all other methods have completely failed first.

It seems a much easier solution is to integrate Game Center, IAP and iAds in to CocoonJS and directCanvas. I'll contact them about this and see what can be done. If both supported all three of those iOS features, would that solve the problem?

Yes Yes Yes to Game Center, they're going to add some fun new stuff in iOS6. Challenges and FB friends syncing!

I would prefer if Ashley focused his resources on improving the core construct experience, as he's already doing with technology like webGL acceleration, but also with stuff like custom ACEs, prefabs, event-coded extensions and plugins, layout variables, multiplayer, more power in the IDE, tilemap support and other awesome stuff like that!

I'm leaving my two cents so Scirra knows not everyone cares deeply about iOS and Android, though I concede that for you guys it probably is extremely important.

Fimbul I agree that not everyone is interested in mobile, but the reality is that IMHO Scirra needs a showcase of applications because the tools in fantastic, far better than the competition, but the competition has commercial games to showcase and currently mobile is the only realistic way of publishing a commercial indie title in a small timeframe plus it's where the money vs investment is.

Ashley, adding those feature will make me use their platform, even pay for it, but the priority must be Game Center, not useless propietary solutions, Game Center for iOS and OpenFeint for Android. Everything else is not right.

iOS 6 will mean for gaming, hope CocoonJS and appMobi could integrate Game Center.

Hello,

I will try to give some feedback on this from Ludei's point of view. We are developers ourselves and know how frustrating it is to get some technology to work as we would like to. There is always a catch.

CocoonJS is not perfect. It is what it is. A canvas acceleration environment at first but a full access to multiple native like features once you start digging. It is not open source and it is true that the cloud compilation system is getting a little more time than we expected/hoped, but I can assure you that it is about to be published, we are just solving the final minor bugs.

We already have iOS ads and IAPs integrated and more features are coming. The CocoonJS Launcher App has finally been approved and a major release will be published shortly that we are sure will be great for all of you.

I am not saying that CocoonJS is better or worse than any of the other solutions. I am just stating what CocoonJS is and we are working really hard to give you the opportunity to try the technology and choose for yourselves which one fits your needs. Scirra has done a great job on this too with their export to CocoonJS option.

Keep up the great work (we have been running great Construct2 based projects lately!).

Regards,

Iker.

The ios launcher app has been approved? Hooray! Onwards with cocoonjs!

The ios launcher app has been approved? Hooray! Onwards with cocoonjs!

Is it?

I went to look up CocoonJS launcher in appstore... FINALLY IT'S APPROVED YAY, i was waiting for long time

Yay! CocoonJS is moving forward well with this.

Downloading the app to test now!

EDIT: Urgh, the app is just a demo isn't it?

ludei I have high hopes for your platform as appmobi has taken a direction that I don't like, but please, please add Game Center support.

You don't need to implement the advanced stuff, leaderboards and achievements are more than enough.

I'm sitting on a game of which I have already finished everything (including a trailer!) I just need to decide on which platform to deploy, please hurry with the cloud compilation!

Rory, the application is not a demo and it's quite well made. Lightyears ahead of appmobi.