Deployment

One click and you're done

The Airplay Deployment Tool allows you to deploy your application to all supported platforms with a single click. Simply select the ARM (or x86) binary you wish to deploy, highlight the OS platforms you wish to target, then click once to create multiple platform-specific installers based on the single native application binary. The CPU type and OS selection is saved between sessions, so that after your first run-through, subsequent deployments are truly a single-click operation.

For example:

• Build your app using the supplied 'ARM GCC Release' build configuration
• Launch the Airplay Deployment Tool
• Select the 'ARM GCC Release' binary
• Select to deploy to iPhone, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile and BREW
• Select 'Deploy All'
• Sit back and, in seconds, the Airplay Deployment Tool will create your iPhone IPA file, your Android APK file, your Symbian SIS file, your Windows Mobile CAB file, and your BREW app folder, all ready to be dragged onto the devices.

X86 deployment

The Airplay Deployment Tool allows you to deploy x86 executable packages for running on Windows or Mac. These can be useful for demonstrating content, or for testing that the app's deployed data structure is laid out as expected.

Note that ARM deployments can also be previewed on the desktop; simply double-click the deployed ARM executable file, and it will launch within the QEMU desktop emulation environment.

The Airplay Deployment Tool - Choosing Platforms

Support for multiple asset sets

Airplay's 'single application binary' means that your app is literally running the same ARM CPU instructions across all platforms. By default, Airplay creates an asset set that will run on any device. However, for developers with time to optimise assets for different device classes, Airplay provides a powerful resource-building framework that makes it easy to create multiple asset sets optimised in various ways. The Airplay Deployment Tool presents the developer with the list of all created asset sets, so that any one deployment can pair a selected asset set with the single application binary, to create a series of deployed SKUs.

Per-platform settings

The Airplay Deployment Tool will generate platform-specific installer packages without requiring the developer to specify any per-platform settings. However, at some point in the development process, the developer will want to specify per-platform settings such as the app's desktop icons, unique app IDs, etc. The Airplay Deployment Tool enables these settings to be specified through a simple GUI, and saved back to the app's project makefile.

The Airplay Deployment Tool - Setting Options