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Developers, expand beyond iOS: Marmalade plans porting 'revolution'

New tool optimises original codebase

Developers, expand beyond iOS: Marmalade plans porting 'revolution'
Cross-platform development tool Marmalade has announced a new venture designed to help iOS studios expand beyond Apple's ecosystem.

As pitched, Marmalade Juice helps "break down the barriers" by doing away with the need for porting as we know it.

Instead, iOS games can be deployed directly on other platforms such as Android, optimising the title's original Objective-C codebase.

Juicy future

Juice allows developers to recompile their Objective-C and native OS APIs - formally only usable on iOS and Mac - within the Marmalade SDK.

"Marmalade Juice is the only cross-platform SDK for taking Objective-C to multiple other platforms including Android," detailed Marmalade in a statement.

"Using Marmalade Juice's revolutionary technology, existing apps on iOS can rapidly be brought to a huge range of additional devices."

Juice is already in use by some studios, it would appear, with Pocket Gems having tapped into it to deploy iOS release Tap Paradise Cove on Google Play and the Amazon Appstore.

Paradise port

"Tap Paradise Cove is already a major hit on iOS, so the opportunity through Marmalade Juice to deploy to additional platforms without rewriting the game was extremely valuable to us," detailed Pocket Gems' Android product lead Arjun Dayal.

"Since launch, we have reached over 1 million additional players on Google Play and Amazon Appstore."


Tap Paradise Cove

Developers interesting in sampling Juice's set up can see it in action via private demonstrations at GDC 2013 in San Francisco. Studios looking to book an appointment should email contacthello [at] marmalademail.com.

With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.