Android as Platform

Desktop web application, mobile web application, or Android application?

This was one of the most difficult decisions for possibly the entire project the group has encountered. The group’s Gantt chart actually has a note about creating a mobile web application or a desktop web application. Actually, it would be good to have it both, which we considered as well.

However, due to the project’s time constraint -- less than three weeks to be precise -- we opted to choose making Check-UP an Android application rather than the first two options, due to the following reasons:

• Practicality. Majority, if not all, of the members of the group is more familiar with Java rather than Django. We realize that Django is relatively easy; we learned, and later programmed using Python in two weeks. However, having years of expertise would certainly speed up development. The momentum might be decreased in dealing with multiple tasks with different methods (i.e. programming projects using different languages).

• Knowledge. The experience of creating an Android application is increasingly valuable. As Android rapidly rising in the world, building Check-UP using this platform will help us produce other useful applications that would most definitely sell easier than a mobile web application.

• Enthusiasm. We are mainly interested on a different environment ourselves. A Django mobile web application might be a thing to see, but you can basically do it in other ways (e.g., PHP, HTML5, etc). An Android application, on the other hand, is unique in terms of environment and “feel”. It’s more fun to develop something new.