Compiling an iPhone XCode project to work on Android

Question

I have an iPhone app which is written in XCode and is currently selling on the iTunes app store. I want to be able to release it for the Android market. Is there any way to compile my app from XCode to work on the Android operating system. I don't really want to learn a new language and completely rewrite my app, so was wondering if there is an easier way.

Answer 1

There isn't any way to compile Android apps from Xcode, and i strongly doubt that Apple would introduce such a feature - if it's even technically possible to do. Sorry.

But if you have Objective C down, you shouldn't have to much problems understanding Java (which is used for creating Android apps).

Check the link below for a pretty comprehensive guide to start learning java and code for the Android platform:

http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/android/java-tutorial/

Good luck!

Answer 2

No, in general you can't do this. Even if assuming Objective-C can be compiled/converted into Java (which is most likely will not be true for times to come), you'll need to rewrite UI part; then most of OS APIs are different too. There are several features that iOS has that Android lacks or does not have open API for it, or has limited API, or has conceptually different or just different API.

Its just easier to move some of your iOS code into C/C++ shared library and then make sure that it compiles and works on both platforms. And then make platform dependent pieces separately for each platform (UI, hardware related stuff, etc.). This way you'll have at least part of your code shared.