The preferred platform for mobile applications isn’t Android. In fact, Android may well be the third favorite from a purely developmental standpoint; Apple has the easiest devices to work with and Microsoft is famed for having a nice development framework. However, Android has nonetheless made its way to nearly a quarter of a million applications. This is due to several factors, including their popularity, their open framework, and their increasing support for various programming languages. Most recently, this has been expanded to include an easier import of apps designed in either C or C++.
According to a post over at the Android Community, this flashback to C++ application development means that our Generation X and Y amateur developers should have more of a chance to come on the scene. The nerdy, geeky high school students of the 80s and 90s often spent hours in the computer labs programming simple games with C++. Beyond meaning that old-school geeks will be able to whip their skills out of the closet and add something to Android, it also means that the many — many, many, many — C++ games that already exist can more readily make their way over to Android.
The specific phrasing used in the official Google Android Developer blog post on the topic told us that “This release is specifically designed to help game developers continue to rock… It should now be very easy to bring games written entirely in C and C++ to Android with minimal modification.” (Emphasis added.) So, no, it won’t be a direct import that comes over flawlessly, and what exactly those “minimal modifications” might be or what Googlers consider to be minimal from their app developers are never mentioned.
This announcement also comes in the midst of a full set of other development utilities present in OS 2.3 and higher, including support for more media rich content.
