koobas.hobune.stream
Has anyone tried writing a non-game android app using unity with backend etc?
I'm thinking of writing a proper business (android) app using unity (Java script)...OR will I be wasting my time...Just a thought?
I haven't but I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. You'd just only be using GUI, code, and maybe animations (from what I can immediately think of) which there's nothing/nobody saying that can't be done.
Games without the actual game-play are just GUI menus that open up other pages (or scenes in this case) so that's pretty much what a non-game app is. :D
purely FTR you'd only use the "new" UI, you'd never use literally the GUI system for any reason
I think it will be awesome if the app can make use of some of the cool features of unity. all the phone apps are so dull and similar looking...
Like I said, from my experience, I don't see why it couldn't be possible.
Now, is Unity efficient for non-game building vs a dedicated non-game building ID$$anonymous$$. That is up to you/other developers to deter$$anonymous$$e because I only have experience app building through Unity. :P
Of course you can, but why would you? Unity is a game engine. It comes with features designed for games: a physics engine, navmesh pathfinding, 3d audio, joypad input, real-time lighting etc. etc. Would your clients want a business app that had been bloated by all those unused features?
moreover, aside from bloat, it's just literally harder, more time-consu$$anonymous$$g to develop such apps in unity. An extremely simple "knock-down" point for example is that Unity does not even have a concept of "tables"!!! Of course, "tables" of all variety are totally central to cocoa and android APIs.
Note OP that you CAN NOT realistically use javascript these days. You must use c# in Unity.
"Has anyone tried ..." the answer is yes,
Sure, we've actually DONE a whole "business app" (social media type thing) using Unity, exactly for Android, as that is what was wanted at the time.
You'd be using Parse.com as the cloud side. These days almost inevitably you'd be using Parse.com and PubNub.com in combination.
Note that these days with Unity's "new" UI it is somewhat easier to make "business-like" apps.
I can assure you that the absolutely, definite, definitive answer to your question is that you should not do this.
You should simply do it using ordinary old Android studio on your Mac or PC.
Even if you're an absolute beginner or hobbyist, the simplest development development on Earth is making little Android business apps, in Android Studio.
It's not much harder than making a web page.
If you can't make a simple business app type app in Android Studio, you just won't be able to do anything with software unfortunately!
Note that it is considerably harder to use Unity, it requires more engineering and understanding more unusual concepts. After all, it's a whole game engine.
Secondly, although systems like Parse do offer connectivity to Unity, it's really just incredibly easier to connect to Parse, social media, and so on, from Android or iSO native.
Thirdly as you'll soon discover, the only real technical challenge in little business apps is when you have scrolling lists (perhaps long ones), whether images, text data or whatever. Again this is incredibly easier to do well in Android/iOS, since they are completely setup for lists and table concepts. (It's as easy as, say, making a monster walk around in a game engine!) You can do it in Unity, but it's a huge really pointless chore.
Two other points are, it is far far easier handling, just simply, images in native Android/iOS. Although Unity have sensibly added Sprite recently, the "whole point" of Unity is to work on a texture-mesh based basis. In contrast it's completely easy and natural to simply "put an image on the screen" in Android/iOS. Also, it's inevitable these days that your client will want you to add "typical phone features" of the day, a good example is say throwing in Maps (google maps, etc) or voice input to your app; this sort of thing is trivial in Android/iOS native, Unity is just not setup for it really.
Hello We managed to implement something like that. Here is a link to asset store https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/packs/social-app-template-147393
