Android

[ronan120155]

Forgive me if this topic has been dealt with already. I am very impressed with this app, is there a version for Android planned?????

Thanks

[Brendan]

Hello Ronan,

Sorry, I don’t plan on building an Android version of Tap Forms. At least not any time soon.

Thanks,

Brendan

[little planet]

+1

I want the Android version too.

[Brendan]

Sorry, but I still have no plans on writing an Android version of Tap Forms. I’m having too much fun working on the iOS and Mac versions.

[alan Lim]

To Brendan

have you had a look at http://www.apportable.com/‎ for an option of porting your app to android??
Excellent app which is sadly missed on the android world

Alan lim

[Brendan]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for the link. I had not heard of that product before. It might be difficult to convert all the third party libraries that I use to also use Android. I’m sure it would also take quite a long time to port it over also. That would take time away from improving Tap Forms for iOS and Mac though. I wonder how my iOS and Mac customers would feel about that? Hmm..

Thanks,

Brendan

[Tim McNerney]

Brendan – I don’t know about the folks up in Calgary, but down here in snowy upstate NY, those of us who use BOTH iOS and Android devices would really appreciate a TapForms for Android.

I use a 4th Gen iPad and a Samsung Galaxy S4. The S4 is my “go to” device, because it’s always with me. When I switch off my iPhone 4s (looking for a bigger screen and more platform “freedom” in Linux, I was really bummed that TapForms wasn’t there. As a Tech Ops guy, teacher and minister I use A LOT of apps.

Only 4 that I use aren’t on Android: SimpleNote, TomTom GPS, CycleMeter GPS and TapForms.

Of interest, one app developer, Universalis, who writes the Liturgy of the Hours for worldwide use by clergy, actually provided an option for me, as an iOS user, to “upgrade” my one-time app purchase for about 20% of the orig $19.95 cost of the app so I could run the Android version.

Bottom-line: there are LOTS of us out here who embrace multiple OS’s (even Win 8)!

Thanks. Great product… one that I use all the time.

Tim

[Gene Flanigan]

Brendan… keep working on the IOS and Mac versions! It seems a bit odd to have a mix of systems, some Android, some Windows and an iPad. Things work much better if you keep it all in one family.

[Tim McNerney]

Gene – You sound a bit like an Apple fan boy!! “Things work much better if you keep them in one family”? Not in today’s world…

Perhaps Brendan doesn’t have the resources to port TapForms to Android. I get that… any other reason, is merely an excuse. If he’s a committed Apple fan, that’s a shame. If he’s not, but his time/talent is limited, then applying the resources he has to one platform makes sense. But, the market on the Android/Linux and Window side is huge. I’d hate to discourage development in that arena.

Appreciate your comments, but I respectfully disagree. Perhaps Brendan will chime in on this stream…

Tim

[Brendan]

Hi Tim,

Well, it’s more a matter of moving things forward rather than stagnating Tap Forms in order to spend the time porting to a platform I have no experience with. I understand and really appreciate the desire to have Tap Forms on Android. It’s great to know that Tap Forms is that well liked that you’d want it available on all your devices.

Even with that Android porting framework, I would need to spend a great deal of time just trying to get it to work. All of the example apps on their site are games. Games generally have their own custom user interfaces so are more likely to port more easily. It’s just a matter of screen sizes after that. I also rely on 3rd party libraries to perform certain tasks such as barcode scanning, database encryption (although the SQLCipher library that I use does have an Android version), etc. It would still be a considerable amount of time to port. All the while me being unable to work on the iOS and Mac versions.

Perhaps one day I’ll get big enough to hire someone to do it for me. Until that time however, it’s iOS and Mac only.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Tim McNerney]

Brendan – Thanks. I appreciate the thoughtful reply and I get where you’re coming from. Yes, it would take resources… and I know from working with other iOS devs that it’s the platform where the $$$ are. Android may have some big market share numbers these days, but not the profits.

That being said, I’ll probably remain platform eclectic. I enjoy the freedom of being able to move about one to the other.

A thought: it’s great that you have an easy-to-use export. My TapForms automatically exports a CSV. I’ll check to see what solid Android password apps provide good import. Perhaps I can get a bit of synergy going between TapForms and the Android side. :-)

Tim

[Brendan]

Thanks Tim. I appreciate your understanding.

Brendan

[Todd Green]

Just another Mac user whose phone and all his tablets are Android. The ability to incorporate straight from my tablet to the computer would be great. I understand the undertaking might be huge and may not be profitable, just wanted to show that there may be more of us out there than you initially thought.

[Brendan]

Hi Todd,

Thanks for your input on this discussion. It’s really not a matter of there being a lot of people on Android or not. Clearly there’s a larger market share of Android users than iOS users out there. However, statistics have shown that iOS users spend more money on apps than Android users. Plus with the plethora of Android devices to test on, it would become unwieldily for me to be able to support all those platforms. And if that were to happen it would stop being fun. And right now I’m having too much fun working on the iOS and Mac versions. I really do love working on Tap Forms. I can’t think of another thing I’d rather be doing with my life right now.

Thanks!

Brendan

[czuch]

Syncing with Android devices would be a major problem, since Tap Forms uses iCloud for syncing. It would probably be restricted to Dropbox.

[tanks]

There’s tons of software that can be used across all platforms these days using iCloud and Google Drive (to name a few). The more platforms you cater to, the more money you will make. And with such well-coded software that you already have, you would kill it in the Android market. You could go Windows too if you wanted. But at least try Android for some of us forced to use more than one OS daily. In my line of work, I have to use iOS, OSX, Debian, Android, Chrome OS and Windows on a weekly basis and it would be so nice if I could use this on Android too (at the very least).

With all the new tech and options available now (since the OP made this post), you have so many other ways to make your beautiful software work with almost any platform without too much hassle.

These are just my own personal feelings. I hope I didn't offend anyone or anything by what I said because that was not my intention.

[Brendan]

Hi Tanks,

Not offended. I just have no plans for an Android version of Tap Forms. I don’t own an Android device and I’m not familiar with the development tools for it. Plus I am just a one-person company so to spread myself so thin between macOS, iOS, Apple Watch, Android, and Windows, that would be a monumental task for me to accomplish. I’d have to start from scratch basically as Android and Windows don’t use Objective-C and Swift for programming their apps. So it would basically be a complete rewrite. And it’s not all about the money for me. I enjoy working on Apple platforms. Have been since I got my first Apple ][+ computer in 1982.

Thanks,

Brendan

[DrJJWMac]

When I see requests such as this thread, I often reminisce on the many times over the past decade (and well beyond) that I have wished that certain Windows-only software would create a development branch for macOS. Thank goodness for Parallels. For completeness, here are the equivalents for Windows or Android wishing to run macOS software

for Windows https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/macos-windows-10-virtual-machine/

for Android https://www.geekydrive.com/2020/10/how-to-run-apples-macos-x-on-any.html

The notion that cross-platform development is now ripe with many options that offer almost no hassle is naive. Even with the many options, starting out, you either decide to develop your app in a stable cross-platform environment (e.g. electron-based) or you become multi-lingual. For well-seasoned apps such as TapForms, you either have to nuke and repave with the same considerations as above, or you have to learn a second computer-programming language from the ground up. In all cases, during the translation, what is considered beautiful in the UI of one specific OS can become rather ugly in the UI of the common-language or the other OS.

To the root of this thread, now a decade old — I am not sure about the overall benefits of having TapForms on Android. I don’t see it impacting me personally, and I don’t see such an app making any groundbreaking inroads in my profession (higher ed). I honestly view the request in this thread as folks asking to have an app that handles a niche-use cases (clean development of UI forms to manage database content) onto a niche OS (Android). Small user-base times small OS base equals small in terms of RoI. I know by comparison what would happen if TapForms offered a Windows-based app — it would be my immediate recommendation to all of my colleagues who use Windows, standing well above competitors such as MS Access or AirTable.

[Brendan]

Oh wow, I hadn’t realized that this thread is really a decade old now! Great observation DrJJWMac.

Well, if it hasn’t happened by now, it’s never going to happen :)

Not unless some much bigger company, say double my size — that would be two people :) decides to buy all my source code and builds Tap Forms for alternative platforms.

[john cesta]

haha, these folks must think it’s a slam dunk to one day decide to port tapforms to android windows etc and in a few months it’s available.

Funny how non programmers think.

A good laugh on Independence day 2021.

[Author]

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