

Open-source App IDE.  Make Apps.  Fast.   - edfg
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kulapa/magikai-make-apps-fast

======
doublerebel
Existing _completely free_ cross-platform apps with free IDE support:

Haxejs <http://haxe.org/>

Titanium Mobile <http://appcelerator.com>

Cordova/PhoneGap <http://phonegap.com>

Wakanda <http://www.wakanda.org>

These all have widget systems and GUI tools to create apps fast. Initially,
making a cross-platform app seems easy and simple. It turns out debugging is
really, really hard. There are many layers and a ton of version/device
fragmentation. Betting my dev money on it for professional apps doesn't seem
like a great idea. I think the killer feature should boil down to this:

    
    
        Magikai is great for kids who are just starting out in programming
    

Right now everything seems to be business focused, i.e. these 'no need to
learn code' systems:

App Breeder <http://www.appbreeder.com/>

AppBotic <http://www.appbotic.com/>

App Inventor <http://beta.appinventor.mit.edu>

App Press <http://www.app-press.com/>

Chatty Apps <http://www.chattysolutions.com/chattyapps.html>

Shout 'Em <http://www.shoutem.com/>

Snappii <https://www.snappii.com/>

_EDIT: And more --[http://dailytekk.com/2012/04/02/100-tools-to-develop-a-
kille...](http://dailytekk.com/2012/04/02/100-tools-to-develop-a-killer-ios-
or-android-app/) _

Generally a decent programmer will hit the limits of the 'easy' framework just
slow enough to have wasted a ton of time. Then you have to drop into native
code to fix the bugs that are not the priority of that specific framework.

Appcelerator has gained so much traction because they have a ton of developers
concentrated on bugfixes and full native API support.

But, to get children started on programming is always a great idea, and as all
of us young devs grow we will want to share the dev experience with our kids.
If they can make that possible I think they'll have a home run on their hands.

~~~
scrumper
> But, to get children started on programming is always a great idea, and as
> all of us young devs grow we will want to share the dev experience with our
> kids. If they can make that possible I think they'll have a home run on
> their hands.

This is worth repeating. Kids are, in general, fabulously creative and
completely open minded with new technology. I can see all sorts of fun,
frivolous, nefarious and downright evil uses for a simple app maker that works
on any kid's phone. Little Johnny makes a simple set of static pages that
stores crib notes for his classes. Evil Britney, who has a few more coding
chops, comes up with an app that screen-scrapes the yearbook site and lets her
friends rate all the boys in her year (she got the idea from The Social
Network.)

If these guys can get their teeth into that market either officially (through
schools) or via the terrifyingly powerful playground word-of-mouth network,
this could become quite big. It's a hell of a long shot though.

~~~
doublerebel
That's why even though I am skeptical, I gave them an upvote. Kids also have a
ton of time and are very tolerant of things not working right on the first
try. If I could amuse myself with Logo and BASIC (and later on, writing class
notes and formula-solvers in graphing calculators), then I'm sure modern-day
kids could take a system like Magikai to places I can't imagine.

None of the other frameworks I am aware of even _consider_ kids as a target
market.

~~~
edfg
thanks for great response! I would love to talk to you further. If you like to
contact me via the email in my info

~~~
doublerebel
Hi Eddie, no contact info shows for me in your HN profile. But, feel free to
contact me through any channel, I am doublerebel everywhere.

------
firlefans
The world's already got a few of these to my knowledge, Brightcove launched
one last week with native plugins..I personally would love to see a fully
native version of this. People want real UIKit/Android components, not an
approximation of same.

------
detay
Before putting out a crossplatform IDE/Framework like this one should examine
the existing ones like Adobe's PhoneGap or Trigger.io etc.. They have been
working on this for some time and they have started out supporting native UI
elements.

Magikai may only be useful for people who really have a basic understanding of
html and want to create a simple app that they have been thinking of.

But not my cup of tea.

~~~
edfg
Hi, founder here. In fact, we build on top of Phonegap, and enhance it with
plugins that don't exist for Phonegap yet, i.e push notification, SMS,
facebook connect, and so on. We'll make the change in the kickstarter page.

------
devb0x
Sounds too good to be true. And you know what they about that

~~~
edfg
Hi, founder here. We're really trying to promote HTML5 development, and we
believe can pull it off with our team.

------
myko
The screen shots seem to show iOS apps on both sides. If the Android apps
don't look like Android apps then it isn't a tool I want to use.

~~~
edfg
Hi, founder here. Apologies, that was a mistake. We'll fix it soon.

------
agscala
How is $18,000 nearly enough for this?

------
slajax
I'll back it if it comes with that awesome bugs bunny sound track.

------
taylodl
In 29 days they've managed to get two people to pledge $1 apiece.

~~~
xymostech
If you actually looked, you'd see that there's 29 days to go, and it started
today.

------
unfamiliar
"in browser"

why!?

~~~
debacle
Because web programmers are terrified of native development.

It infuriates me to no end.

~~~
scrumper
Yeah, but it keeps rates up on the native side. I kinda like them being
scared; when they get too close I can wave pointers around like a wand and
they scurry away.

For my part, I'm a bit scared of web development: without a compiler, I'd have
to keep working _all the time_. I'd miss fencing on chairs.

~~~
debacle
You can add a few layers here and there, like a build process, and continuous
integration or static analysis or release engineering.

It doesn't come near compiler times, but it's close enough.

------
jeffehobbs
Nnnnnnoooooppppppeeeeee

------
kapooht
This is ridiculous.

~~~
dindresto
Have to agree with that. Especially the video: He doesn't even seem to try to
talk freely at the beginning, and later the music which makes it harder to
understand anything. Also, I don't see why I would want to use something like
that. I can just use MacVim for editing and Phonegap for native API access.
Phonegap also has tutorials for how to package the app (with a web view).

~~~
edfg
Hi, founder here. Thanks for the suggestion! We'll fix it for the next video.

------
WayneDB
Personally, I want to be able to easily make cross platform apps that use
Native components, not HTML5 apps.

~~~
mahmud
Qt? wxWidgets? Gtk? XUL?

~~~
WayneDB
I think that our definitions of easy differ.

I don't consider any of those kits very easy to deal with, despite the fact
that I am fully capable of building apps with them.

They're certainly nowhere near the realm of kits like RealStudio/RealBasic,
FileMaker, Access, VB4/5/6 or even WinForms with Visual Studio (some of which
I know are not cross-platform...but they _are_ easy).

~~~
chii
perhaps the reason those are easy is _because_ they weren't cross platform?

