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Future direction of the XDK

xdk_d_
Beginner
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Forgive me if this has been asked/answered before, but I could not find it. Is the future of the XDK for the use of building apps for the store still a major focus for Intel, now and in the future? I ask because based on the traffic on the forums, the future seems bleak for what I am hoping to do. I didnt to a ton of research, but it seems that the number of actual Intel employees responding to forum posts is dwindeling. Can anyone confirm this? What happened to everyone else that was helping users? I just want to know what I am getting myself into should I select the Intel XDK as a platform for development.

Any and all advice would be greatly welcomed before taking a dive into the XDK.

 

 

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44 Replies
Mark_N_1
Beginner
1,507 Views

Big corporations like Intel might change their business focus thereby impacting users of such useful tools.

My only humble submission is as and when HTML5 mobile app support is deprecated, why not make it open source.

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Howard_O_
Beginner
1,507 Views

So I've read a bunch of this ... 

Really disconcerting ... a few months ago a developer in another forum recommended Intel XDK as the best tool for building hybrid apps. Once I downloaded it and understood what I needed to do next, I went about getting all the coding done I needed to get to the stage where I could actually build an app and see it operational on my phone and ipad.  Really thrilling to see my app working on my own ipad for the first time.

I've been excited to move forward with plugins ... then I find this thread.  Just in shock.  So much invested here.

I realize this is free software and from the beginning, I was amazed such a great tool was available for free but grateful for it. Great public service. 

However, the solutions offered for alternatives are just really disappointing.  For novice developers like me who have enough to learn as it is, the extra abstraction of multiple tools, etc., is a bit more than daunting.  

I'm really surprised that Intel would push away so many people who have come to rely on its tool.  I'm not surprised by the bitterness and discontent in the forums.  The executives responsible for this decision might want to research Richard Thayler on the "endowment effect." 

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Konstantin_R_
New Contributor I
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Hi Paul F.

It is a pity that Intel chose such a direction for XDK. For many construct 2 developers, this is bad news. Why did Intel not consider the possibility of making the build service paid? I think many would agree to continue to use it paid, rather than move to a new platform.

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PaulF_IntelCorp
Employee
1,507 Views

Konstantin R. wrote:

It is a pity that Intel chose such a direction for XDK. For many construct 2 developers, this is bad news. Why did Intel not consider the possibility of making the build service paid? I think many would agree to continue to use it paid, rather than move to a new platform.

Given the excellent free build alternatives, it is very unlikely that we could generate sufficient revenue to justify the cost of engineering and maintenance.

As has been noted in other posts, blogs and marketing materials, Intel delivers a wide range of development software, mostly free or at very low cost. Those free and low cost Intel software product offerings are designed to enable the use of Intel hardware and systems built around Intel hardware. Therefore, our software products must change to reflect the changing focus of Intel hardware and systems based on Intel hardware.

Ultimately, any free product needs to drive company revenue, directly or indirectly; I'm sure you would agree that even independent developers need a revenue stream. So like most developers, and virtually every company on the planet, a key focus of any product is to enhance revenue or profits or both; sometimes those products support and enable other products and sometimes they are direct revenue-producing products. Obviously, free products do not generate revenue directly, so they fit into the category of revenue enhancing products.

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PaulF_IntelCorp
Employee
1,507 Views

Howard O. wrote:

I realize this is free software and from the beginning, I was amazed such a great tool was available for free but grateful for it. Great public service.

However, the solutions offered for alternatives are just really disappointing.  For novice developers like me who have enough to learn as it is, the extra abstraction of multiple tools, etc., is a bit more than daunting.  

I'm really surprised that Intel would push away so many people who have come to rely on its tool.  I'm not surprised by the bitterness and discontent in the forums.  The executives responsible for this decision might want to research Richard Thayler on the "endowment effect." 

Our focus on IoT started in September of 2014, with the release of the XDK IoT Edition. In August of 2016 we merged that product into the mainstream XDK Edition and announced our intention to focus on IoT app development, moving away from a focus on mobile app development. Please see the release notes for details.

It is understandable that those who are newly introduced to the XDK may feel like this is a sudden change. We have consciously made gradual changes to the product so that our mobile app developers can easily transition to this new focus on IoT. Unfortunately, it is impossible to capture every developer at every phase of their experience and use of the product.

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Nick_F_2
New Contributor III
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Paul F. (Intel) wrote:

Quote:

Howard O. wrote:

 

I realize this is free software and from the beginning, I was amazed such a great tool was available for free but grateful for it. Great public service.

However, the solutions offered for alternatives are just really disappointing.  For novice developers like me who have enough to learn as it is, the extra abstraction of multiple tools, etc., is a bit more than daunting.  

I'm really surprised that Intel would push away so many people who have come to rely on its tool.  I'm not surprised by the bitterness and discontent in the forums.  The executives responsible for this decision might want to research Richard Thayler on the "endowment effect." 

 

 

Our focus on IoT started in September of 2014, with the release of the XDK IoT Edition. In August of 2016 we merged that product into the mainstream XDK Edition and announced our intention to focus on IoT app development, moving away from a focus on mobile app development. Please see the release notes for details.

It is understandable that those who are newly introduced to the XDK may feel like this is a sudden change. We have consciously made gradual changes to the product so that our mobile app developers can easily transition to this new focus on IoT. Unfortunately, it is impossible to capture every developer at every phase of their experience and use of the product.

The alternatives you suggest are causing big issues for us and it is no longer a clear development path for us. I feel really let down by Intel on this, having invested a lot of time and effort to make it work. I fully understand that as the software was free, there would be limitations going forwards, but this is such a huge change in the development cycle that we are struggling to continue the development of our existing products designed and developed on XDK.

I would have fully supported a paid subscription model for XDK because the product was so good and to be honest there was little to compete in the market place. The alternatives such as Telerik are extremely expensive and Xamarin is nowhere near a cross platform development tool because of the lack of cross platform designer. XDK was the tool of choice for a reason. Everything was in one place.

You have successfully alienated those that have supported this product over the years and to be honest left them high and dry. This is bad PR for intel.

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Nick_F_2
New Contributor III
1,507 Views

Why not make XDK for mobile app development Open Source. I've been experimenting with local installs of Cordova, If I could like it to XDK this might be a way forwards. 

As far as I know I still need local installs of Android Studio (CLI or full) and Xcode (CLI or Full) to be able to complete the builds.

I'm finding the process clunky but might work, but also means about 10gb of downloaded files to make it work.

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PaulF_IntelCorp
Employee
1,507 Views

Nick F. wrote:

Why not make XDK for mobile app development Open Source. I've been experimenting with local installs of Cordova, If I could like it to XDK this might be a way forwards. 

Please see this earlier post in this thread > https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-xdk/topic/700951#comment-1892999 <

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Márcio
Beginner
1,507 Views

It seems that intel has taken advantage of the growth of mobile application development to build its user base. Then changed the course of the project to your real interest, which are iot solutions. Unfortunately the vast majority of mobile app developers are not interested in iot.

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John_L_11
Beginner
1,507 Views

For us XDK users, it would be nice if someone did a video walk-through of using Cordova CLI in place of the tools Intel has deprecated. Basically how to compile/build the apk with all the resources (icons, images, etc.) and get it ready for the Play Store.

I think I understand the steps but there is nothing like watching exactly how it is done.

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PaulF_IntelCorp
Employee
1,507 Views

Márcio wrote:

It seems that intel has taken advantage of the growth of mobile application development to build its user base. Then changed the course of the project to your real interest, which are iot solutions. Unfortunately the vast majority of mobile app developers are not interested in iot.

We understand that not all mobile app developers are also IoT app developers. Nothing underhanded going on, simply a change in hardware and software business focus. As stated earlier, we are trying to make the transition as smooth as possible for users of the Intel XDK as our focus changes.

You may not recall, but Intel was heavily invested in mobile phones and tablets (from vendors like Asus, Samsung, et al); thus the interest in providing mobile app development tools at that time. Unfortunately, our hardware investment focus has changed since then, thus the appropriate change in emphasis for our software products, as stated in this earlier post > https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-xdk/topic/700951#comment-1902022 <

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PaulF_IntelCorp
Employee
1,507 Views

John L. wrote:

For us XDK users, it would be nice if someone did a video walk-through of using Cordova CLI in place of the tools Intel has deprecated. Basically how to compile/build the apk with all the resources (icons, images, etc.) and get it ready for the Play Store.

I think I understand the steps but there is nothing like watching exactly how it is done.

There are many blogs already written covering how to use Cordova CLI, as well as many YouTube videos.

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PaulF_IntelCorp
Employee
1,507 Views

Mark N. wrote:

My only humble submission is as and when HTML5 mobile app support is deprecated, why not make it open source.

A decision has been made by our product and engineering management to NOT open-source the Intel XDK project nor any of its deprecated components. In addition, we will not change the license terms that are already in place for existing or prior releases of the Intel XDK source code

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David_S_15
New Contributor I
1,507 Views

A new thread specifically discussing the loss of the cloud build tools: https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-xdk/topic/734632 

Posting here to get more input from the community that commented here. Hoping to ask again about open sourcing the build server setup specifically as well as for recommendations for others tools that may offer this cloud build functionality or to figure out a way to perhaps crowdfund and BUY this code from Intel to offer continued support for this capability.

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Bilin_D_
Beginner
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I have been using Intel xdk for the last two years and do understand that it is not possible for Intel to provide the build service for free as the number of users increase. But I have a request for the Intel xdk team. Currently the folder which is generated for phonegap and Cordova build only contains the www folder. But when *simulate* tab is used the entire Cordova project consisting the folders plugins, platforms,etc are also generated in the *appdata* folder of the xdk. It would be very nice if we could get that project instead of the one we get at present for building locally. Also please update Cordova to version 7 in the next release of Intel xdk. Hope what I said is understood
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PaulF_IntelCorp
Employee
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Bilin D. wrote:

I have been using Intel xdk for the last two years and do understand that it is not possible for Intel to provide the build service for free as the number of users increase. But I have a request for the Intel xdk team. Currently the folder which is generated for phonegap and Cordova build only contains the www folder. But when *simulate* tab is used the entire Cordova project consisting the folders plugins, platforms,etc are also generated in the *appdata* folder of the xdk. It would be very nice if we could get that project instead of the one we get at present for building locally. Also please update Cordova to version 7 in the next release of Intel xdk. Hope what I said is understood

If we provided the additional Cordova plugins, platforms, etc. folders with each export of a project you would experience many subtle issues with the exported project. Each release of Cordova CLI by the Cordova project team includes tweaks and changes to the structure of those folders, the files and the template projects that are used to perform the builds. The XDK includes only one specific version of CLI (built in) to perform the "project prepare" process that is needed to allow the Simulate tab to run. If we did what you suggest your exported project would be limited to using only that one specific version of CLI that is built into the XDK (in this case, 6.2). Thus, in order to insure a greater degree of compatibility, we export only the build instructions (the config.xml file), the source files (in the www folder) and the package assets (in the package-assets folder) needed to reproduce your application in a standard Cordova CLI environment.

I have written some instructions on how to export your project once into CLI and then use that in conjunction with the XDK (so you could then do further edits and work with the XDK but not have to keep exporting), please give it a try and let me know if it works for you. I'm sure it can use some refinement. You'll find it at the end of this doc page > https://software.intel.com/en-us/xdk/docs/build-xdk-app-with-phonegap-cordova-cli <

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Michael_O_2
New Contributor I
1,507 Views

If anyone is having challenges with maintaining a mobile app that is already on app stores, contact me and I can provide a professional assistance. I am not limited by Intel XDK or any other tool whatsoever. 

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Michael_O_2
New Contributor I
1,507 Views

React Native has a cool IDE called envo. You might want to check it out and get native apps that perform better than Cordova apps.

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Thomas_R_3
Beginner
1,369 Views

May I request a point of contact regarding potential licensing for the XDK codebase?

Thomas.rivette@gmail.com (407) 242-1263.

Thank you,

Thomas

 

 

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PaulF_IntelCorp
Employee
1,369 Views

Thomas R. wrote:

May I request a point of contact regarding potential licensing for the XDK codebase?

Thomas.rivette@gmail.com (407) 242-1263.

I've forwarded your request to the appropriate product manager.

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