The future of Qt support for mobile
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I am trying to decide, whether to start developing a large-scale technology on the Qt platform or not. My aim is to be able to build versions for the main tabletop operating systems, as well as the major mobile operating systems.
Currently, with Qt Cloud Services getting the plug pulled off in the Qt world, and as another example, Parse getting the axe on the Facebook arena, it seems that the trend is towards different forms of support being ceased when the demand does not exceed some predetermined figure.
My question here is that is there any guarantee that Qt will support for example iOS and Android in the far future, or is there a possibility that Qt will become a specialized technology for quirky devices and iOT only?
Qt is a great technology to develop with, because ultra-fast iterations on the UI side are possible with dynamic QML. Also, my application will define its own UI style and conventions, and will not rely on the native look and feel.
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@Archie888 said in The future of Qt support for mobile:
My question here is that is there any guarantee that Qt will support for example iOS and Android in the far future, or is there a possibility that Qt will become a specialized technology for quirky devices and iOT only?
Is there any guarantee that iOS and Android will still exist in 10 years?
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@Archie888 said in The future of Qt support for mobile:
Currently, with Qt Cloud Services getting the plug pulled off in the Qt world, and as another example, Parse getting the axe on the Facebook arena, it seems that the trend is towards different forms of support being ceased when the demand does not exceed some predetermined figure.
Any company/organization needs allocate its limited resources wisely, or else it will collapse. It doesn't make sense to spend time, energy and money supporting something that's used by a very small percentage of your target audience.
My question here is that is there any guarantee that Qt will support for example iOS and Android in the far future, or is there a possibility that Qt will become a specialized technology for quirky devices and iOT only?
I can't guarantee that Qt will remain relevant in the far future, but I'm very confident that it will.
I think Qt will continue evolving to stay relevant to mainstream consumer devices. (Note: Like @raven-worx implied, there's a possibility that mobile phones will no longer be mainstream in the far future! Would you still want to support them when that time arrives?)
Qt is a great technology to develop with, because ultra-fast iterations on the UI side are possible with dynamic QML. Also, my application will define its own UI style and conventions, and will not rely on the native look and feel.
I think so too. This is one good reason why I think you should keep going with Qt for the near future, and then re-evaluate your options every few years.
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@Archie888 if you look at the code, you will notice that the mobile platform support parts are dual licensed; open source and commercial.
Having that code in open source means that it is not going away, there is no way it can go away.Qt Cloud Services was a commercial only offering that did not get enough customer demand. That is a completely different business model. Running a cloud service costs money every minute, something most people completely forget. Without enough customers, it makes no sense to run a cloud service, Amazon, Google and Microsoft can always do it cheaper with the immense scale benefit they have.