

Using Parse and Trigger.io for cross-platform apps without pain in the back-end - blueski
http://trigger.io/cross-platform-application-development-blog/2012/03/23/using-parse-and-trigger-io-for-cross-platform-apps-without-pain-in-the-back-end/

======
iamwil
I'll have to try this out. When I was using cross-platform frameworks over a
year and half ago (which is a long long time ago), they weren't very good. It
seems like lots of cross-platform frameworks have made headway since then.

From a cursory glance, it seems like it should be easy enough to use. Though I
have a question. What happens on errors? One of my big frustrations from
before was that underlying iOS errors would bubble up and I'd spend hours
digging around in iOS, trying to figure out what the error really was talking
about. It required an understanding of how iOS/Android apps were put together.

~~~
w-ll
I've played with Trigger.io's Forge and can tell you as far as crashes and
debugging, they provide a webservice that your app can report to, and you can
monitor it in real time. That being said...

After playing with Trigger (or Forge is the actual product) I was rather
disappointed.

somethings I've observed: 1) Forge is NOT free - You have to pay $50 A MONTH
to remove their branding. Which is a big splash screen that is shown for about
3 seconds when the app is launched. This producing a terrible waiting period
(not sure if they are doing work in the bg) but it defiantly doesn't feel as
snappy as it could. Am I'm not paying $50 to find out.

2) I saw nothing that supports their claim 5x performance than phonegap. I've
built a fair share of native and web wrapper apps. If anything it was a little
laggy'er.

3) It's early in its life, many features are actually not cross platform. Many
things only working in android or iOS.

I;m still sticking with phonegap. It's a way more mature system. And its Fee.

~~~
mdcarter
Trigger.io looks very nice but I totally agree with you, the 50$/month is
really a huge issue for indie dev who just want to play around with iPhone app
making. You can't just release an app with a huge ad at each start, even if
it's just for fun :/

~~~
amirnathoo
Thanks for the feedback. We definitely want to support indie devs, and will
add tiers to reflect that soon.

Our current pricing is more targeted at enterprises, web dev studies and
funded startups.

~~~
cadr
So if I make an app, and release it to the app store, and then cancel my
account with Trigger, a splash screen starts when my users that already
downloaded the app start it?

~~~
amirnathoo
No, users who have already installed the app get the same experience as when
they originally downloaded it.

And there's nothing automatic in our wrapper that 'calls back' to trigger.io
and modifies the user experience based on that. We simply ask that if you
continue distributing the app in the app stores that you pay the appropriate
tier.

------
untog
I'm always going to favour PhoneGap over Trigger.io because of PhoneGap's
plugin community. It's also relatively easy to make plugins yourself- I've
been hacking around at adding the Spotify API recently. Being a paid product,
it's unlikely that Trigger.io are going to get the same level of support from
hackers that PhoneGap has.

------
97s
Could you see what is going on with the first weather demo tutorial. I want to
try your service out, however I can't download the resources.zip from the
tutorial, I am returned a 404. Very excited to develop an app using your
service!

~~~
blueski
Thanks so much for letting us know! Fixed now. Hope you enjoy building with
Trigger.io - let us know how you get on :)

------
tjpd
Development seems to be moving along pretty rapidly & they've managed to
integrate a bunch of popular frameworks: backbone.js, zepto.js, spine.js,
Sencha Touch, jQuery, jQuery Mobile, underscore.js ...

