libgdx RoboVM backend

Engines, Libraries and Tools
#1

Niklas Therning of RoboVM fame provided us with a libgdx backend a while ago. Yesterday i started integrating it with our master repository, and everything went a lot smoother than expected.

What’s RoboVM? An ahead-of-time compiler for JVM bytecode, targeting x86 and arm, with a focus on iOS. It supports all you can think of (JNI, full class library based on Android’s latest class library, class path resources, annotations, you name it) and matures really quickly. The only thing missing is debugging support.

Given it’s AOT nature, apps compiled with RoboVM can be deployed to the iOS App Store. Best of all, RoboVM is completely free of charge (apart from needing a Mac and an Apple dev license) and OSS.

We’ll push this backend hard in the next few weeks/month, and will make it our default backend for iOS as soon as it’s stable.

RoboVM may also be interesting to other folks, such as the JME or Ardor3D, maybe even LWJGL. Give it a try, it’s pretty simple to use.

#2

RoboVM is quite an exciting development. But this is one of those cases where I just wished there was more collaboration in the (open source) world; it would have been far cooler if the RoboVM developments had happened as part of the Avian project so we would have a nice small and distributable VM for multiple platforms.

#3

A NEWT (JogAmp) implementation for iOS is on the run and I’m more interested in AvianVM even though RoboVM looks good.

#4

This barrier is still unbreakable.

#5

Just use a Hackintosh :smiley:

#6

But but it’s still costly. Beside dev account, I want freebie!

#7

Use a virtual box :wink: And I believe you can compile with a faux certificate for free, but you will only be able to play on Jailbroken devices.

#8

Not good. I want a “pure innocent” release ;D

#9

Found some info. You can deploy a native linux/unix application to a mac. Here are the links.

I think placing your linux native app in the [icode]Contents/MacOS[/icode] folder of the package and editing the [icode]Info.plist[/icode] file would be sufficient as Mac is based on the Unix and Linux is a version of Unix available for free.

#10

Ya no problem on Apple’s desktop. The main problem here is iOS.