Native iOS development for Delphi programmers: Project ‘Nougat’

If you’ve kept up to date with developments in the world of Delphi, you’ll be aware that Embarcadero have teased us with a multi-step way of targeting iOS devices using the cross-platform FireMonkey framework and then just recently taken it away again (for now…).

It seems almost prescient, then, that RemObjects have just announced Project ‘Nougat’, which is the next incarnation of their Delphi-like Object Pascal based Oxygene compiler.

Oxygene will soon be natively targeting three platforms:

• .NET: Oxygene for .NET (aka Delphi Prism aka Embarcadero Prism) is the longstanding .NET compiler that took over from Delphi for .NET in Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero’s RAD Studio suite. It was released in 2005 and supports all the platform features such as LINQ and the Parallel Framework and targets regular .NET, Silverlight, Windows Store (aka Metro), Mono, in other words anything .NET can be targeted from Oxygene for .NET.
  
• Java & Android: Oxygene for Java (previously Project ‘Cooper’) was released in 2011 and supports the targeting the Java Virtual Machine and also fully supports the Android toolchain. This means you can target regular Java apps, Java servlets, Java applets, and also build apps for Android phones and tablets. I’ve posted quite a bit already on Android development using Oxygene for Java.
  
• OS X and iOS: this is what Project ‘Nougat’ is all about. It is in development, and the beta is expected to start in early October 2012, with release in the first half of 2013. ‘Nougat’ will target:
  • 64-bit OS X apps
  • 32-bit ARM v7 iOS apps
  • 32-bit Intel iOS Simulator apps
  There will be no wrappers involved in the generated apps, so nothing like Mono will be necessary. You will get native apps out of Project ‘Nougat’, coded in Pascal but as native as if you’d used Objective-C.

This is a great move forwards to fill in the gaps in what Oxygene can target and now gives a full spread over the major desktop and mobile platforms in one permutation or another.

If interested in native iOS and OS X targeting using all the regular native APIs as nature intended then be sure to read the series (in progress) of posts by RemObjects’ marc hoffman:

• What is “Nougat”? – Part 1 – introduction, emphasising and illustrating the native targeting aspects
• What is “Nougat”? – Part 2 – target platforms, ARC, boxing and references
• What is “Nougat”? – Part 3 – the IDE, building and running an app
• What is “Nougat”? – Part 4 – the build & deploy process

Additionally (and perhaps importantly), if you buy an Oxygene subscription for $499 (that’s the price for a new subscription – it’s $349 for a renewal) you get all three platforms: Oxygene for .NET and Oxygene for Java (and Android) and Project ‘Nougat’ (you’ll get access to the beta and also the shipping product when it comes out in the first half of 2013).