[Python-ideas] python on mobile

[Sturla Molden]

Some thoughs on this:

Kivy is based on PyGame, which is based on SDL (libsdl.org), PyOpenGL 
and NumPy. SDL is not going away and supports iOS and Android as well as 
most deskop OSes. PyOpenGL and NumPy are not going away either. 
Personally I would consider to use SDL and OpenGL directly from Cython, 
unless you really need Kivy. A mobile has limited resources so you 
should be careful about stacking up several layers of software.

You can use Objective C APIs directly in Python with PyObjC, and thereby 
create "native" iOS apps.

PyQt now supports Qt5 and has official iOS and Android support. You 
might also try your luck with PySide. Beware of the licensing issues.

There is something called HTML5. I don't know much about it, but 
presumably you can use WebKit Framework in yout iOS Python app to make 
an HTML5 based UI.

Mozilla is now coming to iOS and Android. Using Python and XUL might 
also be possible.

There are apps in Apple Appstore based on Python co clearly it can be 
done. As I understand the rules now the app bundle must be 
self-contained. I.e. you must include the Python interpreter and all 
libraries in the bundle. Also your app cannot download executable code 
(e.g. python modules) from the internet. The used to be a ban on 
interpreted code on iOS, but I think that was mostly to fight Adobe 
Flash and Java mobile edition. The requirement now is a self-contained 
app bundle.

Sturla



On 26/12/14 11:34, Fetchinson . 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
>
>