Hi Daniel,

I've been working on this problem recently; I posted about the idea to this very list a few months ago:

https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2014-October/029856.html

At the time I posted, I had posted Python builds that work on both Android and iOS:

https://github.com/pybee/Python-iOS-support
https://github.com/pybee/Python-Android-support

and template projects that get you to "hello world" on a mobile platform without much effort.

https://github.com/pybee/Python-iOS-template
https://github.com/pybee/Python-Android-template

I've also tackled the cross-language bridging issue:

https://github.com/pybee/rubicon-objc
https://github.com/pybee/rubicon-java

and wrapped native widgets up into a cross-platform widget library:

http://pybee.org/toga/

Now - I'm not claiming that these are anywhere near production ready - they're proof of concept at best. However, I completely agree with your original premise that Python needs a story on mobile platforms, and I'm interested in working on that story. If you go back and read the Python-ideas thread from a few months ago, it looks like there was broad support for the idea, but it would all hinge on the specifics. 

So, that's what I've been working on. Since I posted to Python-ideas in October, I've been focussing on getting the patches necessary for Python's own build system. However, I've been distracted by work life etc, so I haven't made as much progress as I would have liked. I'm hoping the Christmas/New year break will give me a chance to make some headway.

As far as Kivy goes - I have tinkered with Kivy; I've even used Kivy's tools as a starting point for some of my own efforts. However, to me, Kivy is focussing too far up the stack - their toolchain appears to be based on getting *Kivy* working on mobile, not *Python*. This is an entirely reasonable approach if Kivy is what you want at the end of the day - but it's not what *I* want. I've been taking a much more atomic approach. The Kivy toolchain is also anchored in old versions of Python 2; something that definitely needs to be addressed. 

Ultimately, I want to get these patches in to Python's trunk; but I'm still a way off that being a reality. If you're interested in collaborating and helping me get to that point, please get in touch - there's plenty of work to do, and if you're keen to help, I'm happy to share what I've got so far. 

Yours,
Russ Magee %-)

On Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 6:34 PM, Fetchinson . <fetchinson@googlemail.com> wrote:
Hi all, maybe the best list would be python-dev but I don't dare
waking the sleeping lions there :)

So my question is this: is there a coherent mobile strategy among core
dev people? I mean you guys release python for linux/macos/windows and
the question is if there are any plans to do the same for a mobile
platform. It doesn't have to be android or ios just anything that the
core dev team chooses and sticks with.

I've been developing python apps for smartphones (mostly hobby
projects though) using sl4a but that seems like is dead. Now people
suggest me using kivy which seems to be alive but who knows how long.
There are some other projects qpython, etc, which are small and
equally not so reliable at least looking from the outside. Is kivy now
an officially blessed distribution? Since google was so integral to
both python (through employing Guido) and android I'd think it would
make sense for google to have an official python environment for
android in cooperation with the python dev team.

Does the PSF has an opinion on this? It would be great if there would
be something for mobile phones that we could rely on not going away
just as with linux/macos/windows.

Or there are some issues which preclude this from the start?

Cheers,
Daniel


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