Novell's Mono Touch is a development environment for the iPhone OS designed for software engineers more experienced in Microsoft's development tools, such as the .NET framework or the C# programming language.
One thing Mono Touch doesn't do is remove the requirement for a Mac and Apple's iPhone SDK to be able to develop for the iPhone. Another remaining requirement is membership in the iPhone Developer Program to be able to sell apps at Apple's App Store, or even deploy them to other iPhones, iPod Touches, and eventually the iPad.
Unlike Apple's iPhone development tools, Mono Touch isn't free
Since Mono Touch's suggested retail price ranges from $399 for the single-seat Professional edition all the way to $3,999 for a five-seat Enterprise edition, the decision to purchase Mono Touch needs to be weighed against Apple's free suite of iPhone development tools. After all, in both cases, the paid membership to the iPhone Development program is a requirement for app deployment.
The advantage of using Mono Touch comes in leveraging both developer experience in C# and the .NET Framework as well as some language enhancements like LINQ (Language Integrated Query) and other third-party programming libraries from Microsoft's large developer community.
Objective-C isn't hard to learn
Frankly, the iPhone is a different enough environment and also a resource-constrained mobile platform, that developers with experience in both C and C++ as well as .NET should have no problem sticking with Objective-C and Apple's native development tools.
Where Mono Touch makes sense is with newer programmers who only know C#, as Mono Touch may isolate them from the lower-level aspects of the iPhone API like memory management. The tool does a great job in exposing the iPhone API as C# objects, so this may provide more comfort for younger developers.
Another advantage could come in moving Windows Mobile apps over to the iPhone platform. In this case, business logic can probably be shared in C# libraries between both platforms. There may be future synergies in this area for development shops that want to develop for both the iPhone and the Windows Phone 7 platforms.
So for the vast majority of iPhone developers, sticking with Apple's native tools makes the most sense. Companies with a large investment in .NET programming should consider Mono Touch as an option for iPhone Development.
Comments
"Unlike Apple's iPhone development tools, Mono Touch isn't free". MonoTouch development tools are free in the evaluation version, you only have to pay to get on device, much akin to Apples $99/yr fee to get on the device.
You have to pay the $399+ to "get on device" AND you still have to pay Apple's $99/yr fee. Still for someone who wants to leverage their C# knowledge, or potentially their existing codebase, and doesn't like the Obj-C syntax - that might be worth the quid.
If you want more features than Sqlite database, EffiProz database cost another $390. It may be worth depending on the requires of your task.
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