We need to talk. Its time that you start thinking of Shapr3d on High level android devices.
I am busy designing a number of parts for my drone and this weekend while i was designing I was forced by the girlfriend to watch a senseless chick flick. So ofcourse I reluctantly agreed while still thinking of designs and how I need to change them.
So I tried onshape mobile and it was the worst experience ever so I could not even use that and realised just how intuitive Shapr has become.
So please help your fellow brothers out and have a serious think about developing for Android. So help a brother out here please.
Hi @Barryd, thanks for your feedback. Iâm really happy that you enjoy using Shapr3D on other platforms. However we wonât ship Shapr3D to Android anytime soon.
Shame that. I just retired and have been asked to coach a 3D class/group of kids. They have Android tablets. A watered down version of Shapr for Android would be nice.
I think it is impressive that a team (as the website says) that grew from 7 to 100, is able to support macOS, Windows, and iOS writing native code for each of their offerings with C#/XAML, Swift/Objective-C/C++ for iOS and macOS. From a logistics perspective, it is admirable enough they are able to support 3 delivery platforms and do so incredibly well. Adding Android would mean also adding a Java capability to the team, along with very specific competencies in Java application deployment. Additionally, integrating modeling engines from lower level programming languages with Java applications is not a straight-forward process.
While from a consumer standpoint it would be very desirable to have these offerings in every platform imaginable, it simply may not be feasible for Shapr3D to support something like Android with current team sizes and team capabilities. So please keep that in mind when disappointment about this yields a âthats a shameâ response. From an engineering perspective, the team may not be large enough or most importantly, they may simply want to focus on 3 specific platforms in order to provide us, their customers, with the best product for these platforms they can produce. As a software solutions architect, I appreciate that approach because from a technology and core competency standpoint, it makes sense. Thereâs a whole more to this than just ârelease an Android versionâ, especially one that for the sake of platform availability, will not meet the high standards of quality for the Shapr3D team.
Anyway, thatâs my 2 cent contribution to the topic. It may be disappointing for Android users, but the production of this software has to make operational sense for the company and team producing it.
i suppose if shapr3d has some sort of licensing agreements with apple, i imagine it will never come out for android.
But I could imagine that if there are problems with the implementation, it might be possible to run it via a web-based solution? So itâs like a web-based service in the cloud where everything runs onlineâŚ
I donât think thatâs how Apple rollsâŚthe software is published through the App Store, and Apple takes a cut. As far as I know (ex-Apple employee), they donât have agreements with most developers.
But the only agreements I know of are most likely between Amazon and Apple, because they both offer the same type of content.
I have a friend who is a veteran software developer (30+ years). He wrote an iOS app a while back and decided to try and do it on Android too. His words were âitâs an awful platform to develop for. So much nicer and easier on Appleâ.
No, of course not. But if the product strategy doesnât call for it (because the market is big enough with Mac, iPad and Windows) then why inflict pain on oneself by having to code a fourth platform with a reputation for being horrible?
Go with onshape if you want to dish out 1200$ in an anual only license and although extremely resourceful and flexible since they have android/web platform and the use of connectors to directly connect to a huge range of parts vendors that supply prebuilt cad models that can be directly imported to the platform.
The actual intuitive nature needed in 3d modeling is a little clunky on onshape and not well suited for a beginner due to the overwhelming amount of features and limited movement in the ui making you feel like you cant freely navigate around your model.
I recently went through a trial with onshape and dont get me wrong its an amazing platform and i was impressed by its huge feature set, large connector catalog, and awesome sales and support team so im not bashing the platform butâŚ
Despite its positives keep in mind i still chose shapr3d because its intuitive navigation, user-friendly ui allowing me to reduce time to complete models, and its affordable and offers a monthly subscription option. Also its processing runs as smooth as butter on my pc and not goverened by my internet connection.
Onshape scores solid 4.3
Shapr3d scores an earned 4.8
Was a close and difficult choice but i am very happy with the one i made.
I am really dissapointed that this wonât be released for Android. My latest tablet is a Samsung Galaxy S8 Ultra because it just made sense. I still have my ipad pro that is many years old at this point but I love shap3r and the subscription licensing is affordable for a small business owner like myself.
Its dissapointing because I am going to have to learn something else. And hope I can find something I can afford as a small business owner.
All this after I was part of the original beta. You are missing out on a large customer base by leaving android out of the loop. There are tons of people looking to create models that would love shap3r because of ease of use and affordability, bht they are android users.
Especially people like me who detest apple to the point I would rather eat glass than buy anything made by them! Granted we can use windows but lets face it, being able to use a tablet would make a world of difference. I am praying the surface tablet I am looking at will work. I know the arm versions wonât but looks like the i7 versions will.
If youâre not (or were not at any time) a software developer, you just donât understand how difficult it is to âport it to Androidâ. Especially for an app that requires excellent graphics support and low level programming for the best performance. Itâs not a simple thing.
Plus, even if they tried to make it run well on the best Android devices, they could be innundated with users on low end devices where it performs poorly, or not at all. Not to mention the plethora of Android device sizes, and custom implementations of Android OS with their own idiosyncracies. And itâs no small matter to even try to ârestrictâ it from running on devices with a low-end processor- that info is difficult to obtain if not impossible.
I worked for a weather app company and we considered trying to make features only for âbetterâ devices but spent months trying to figure out how do it (without making a huge, impossible to sustain, white list of devices), and failed after about 6 months. Also, some devices simply had bugs we could never ever reproduce nor work around or fix - all because it was one particular hardware (ie OnePlus or Motorola device). Android is actually a really poor programming environment overall.
I donât blame Shapr for not wanting to go thru that pain.
