I'm not trying to steal TGC thunder whatsoever, but I was reading the PhoneGap framework website, and I found very interesting the PhoneGap Build service. Basically you submit your app (html based) to them and they give you back the binaries necessary to release to app stores.

What about TGC came up with something like that, besides the publishing service? Let's say, we develop tier 1 apps, and send to TGC to a similar build system. After getting the binaries back, we could sign and deploy to the app stores as we wish.

I'm not completely sure, but I might pay a year subscription to TGC to have that option rather than give another slice of my sales revenue (assuming I'll have one ).

Of course, this seems a good idea, but it depends on a very good "cloud service", so maybe is not that easy. In any case, I'll let the idea here...

Regards

Paulo

Good idea kid, what about this Lee?

I don't see the point of this since we can compile our own binaries to sign and deploy as we wish?

"

Well, if you don't have a Mac and don't have money to buy one, don't want to run MacOS X 10.6 in a Virtual Machine or don't have the computer power to do it, then this would be perfect for Tier 1 apps.

It should be optional and I am fine with that.

On iOs if someone compiles the bytecode for you and sends you back an ipa ready for distribution, it will have HIS developer keys inside.

That's why TGC will distribute the games themselves.

Well, the beauty about that service is that it sends you the binaries for all supported platforms. I understand this is better for HTML "developers", since they don't have to deal with several different SDK installations, IDEs, etc...

As for iOS apps, I don't think the IPA file has to have the developer ID as you said, since this PhoneGap service says it will send the IPA file for you and then you'll have to proceed and sign it. What I know about it is what I read on their website, so it might be not completely true...

What I like the idea is that you can have multiple binaries created at once. It saves a lot of time, and since the Tier 1 is very platform agnostic, I like the idea of not having to deal with several SDKS/IDE myself. This not considering the MacOS factor, which is actually a "huge" investment for indie developers.

In any case, this kind of build system would take a lot of work to get done, and might not worth it (for TGC).

Regards

Paulo

Even with PhoneGab you need a OSX machine to sign it. So there is no real advantage of it.

Maybe you can sign ipa packages with an external utility that injects your code signature.
Can you do that on Windows though?

Hi Guys,

There are a number of options, and right now we are exploring the easiest one for you guys with a straight validation of the AppGameKit Player. Solutions like DragonSDK and PhoneGap rely in part on relinquishing your certificate, which seems to us like a security risk for you.

I had been tinkering with the idea of a build service for you, but it seems expensive and insecure. Just to throw it out there though, how many of you would be interested in paying something like $150 ($99 for the Apple registration and $50 for some TGC legwork) for us to register your account, store your certificate and provision profile, build you an AppGameKit Player app to test your devices on (perhaps up to 3 devices; iPhone, iPad, iPod) and then some sort of pro-rata rate each time you want one of our staff to build an Ad Hoc or submit a Distributable to Apple. In the latest XCODE, you have to use an App Uploader which can only be run on a Mac so you can only send the signed binary file via a Mac. There may be a way to automate the building of an Ad Hoc binary for testing and drop it onto the server for you to download, but adding device ID's, downloading new provisions and uploading to the App Store for publication are all very much a hands on human job at the moment.

Your ideas on this are most welcome. We want to create this process as painless and effortless as possible. You've already done the hard work creating and testing your AppGameKit app on Windows. We don't want you to go through the whole process again on another system. It seems counter-intuitive and a little repetitive.

@lee The dragonfire way of building works great , upload the app ,download then you can sync the app through itunes which is cool for me as a hobbyist programmer , but their sdk is lacking lots of features .

The agk with a similar build service would be absolutley perfect for me and other hobbyists too , suppose you could then release the built apps through tgc for anyone who wants to publish their app for free and anyone who wanted to release the app for themselves to make money could use the xcode app store soloution.

chunks

how many of you would be interested in paying something like $150 ($99 for the Apple registration and $50 for some TGC legwork) for us to register your account, store your certificate and provision profile, build you an AppGameKit Player app to test your devices on (perhaps up to 3 devices; iPhone, iPad, iPod) and then some sort of pro-rata rate each time you want one of our staff to build an Ad Hoc or submit a Distributable to Apple.

I am interested in having it all done for me because I do not own a Mac. (I will buy one if I sell enough units of my first AppGameKit app, but I am so broke right now that I can barely pay attention, much less pay for an expensive computer)
If it is a manual process then fine, charge a base fee per game for the trouble, since the percentage is ify anyway.
So, I am on board for getting any kind of help I can from TGC for this process.
If it is going to cost me then I'd rather give the money to you guys than anyone else.

Solutions like DragonSDK and PhoneGap rely in part on relinquishing your certificate, which seems to us like a security risk for you.

I trust you guys because of the years I have been part of the TGC community.
I do not know those other publishers from Adam.

Your ideas on this are most welcome. We want to create this process as painless and effortless as possible.

My only idea is for you to use your Mac to upload my game.
I'd happily pay a base fee per app.

@chunks chunks : Can you email me at lee@thegamecrreators.com as I would like to know the reality of the Dragon approach. Did you have to register the Apple account yourself, and did you relinquish your password / certificate / provisioning profiles / e.t.c. during the build process?