I am implementing the client side of some java application for Android devices which requires a lot of user interaction, image loadings and JSON object parsing. I’m trying to decide whether to implement it with html5, flash or Android native code.
Frame#/sec is crucial for this application. Does anyone have any idea of what other important metrics to evaluate against for applications like this? Is there any sample android app (in native code) that’s similar to Card Flip demo app in apple’s html5 showcase (http://www.apple.com/html5/showcase/gallery/)?
This depends on your application. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of any metrics comparing html5/flash/native in Android. But from personal experience, html5 is ok, flash is terrible.
There are tons of applications that do things like this in the Android market. Most of them use native code. At least the good ones do.
With native, you’ll almost certainly reach your FPS goal. With html5, MAYBE. With flash, probably not.
Don’t forget that Android devices are pretty much PCs 10-15 years ago. Which means they’re fairly ‘underpowered’ and the amount of layers from the flash code to the display is too much for the phone.
With native code, you avoid a LOT of overhead and will most likely hit your FPS goal a lot easier.
However, you didn’t specify if you want your app to only run on Android devices. If you do, just use native.
If you want it to run on other devices, you will want to check out some of the cross-platform html/5 mobile app development kits.