General
About Ansca Mobile
Ansca Mobile is a venture backed software company led by an award-winning team of former Adobe mobile engineers, who were responsible for the leadership and technical breakthroughs that helped Adobe Flash Lite reach nearly a billion devices.
Ansca is revolutionizing mobile application development by empowering developers of all backgrounds to create captivating mobile experiences. Ansca’s Corona enables designers, engineers, and non-traditional developers to quickly create and share applications designed for the Apple iPhone.
What is Corona?
Corona is Ansca’s product line for creating high-performance multimedia applications and games for the iPhone.
How did you pick the name Corona?
In the Corona SDK, you’ll write code in Lua, an intuitive and powerful scripting language. Lua means "moon" in Portuguese, so the name Corona just made sense — the solar corona is the plasma region surrounding the sun that powers the solar wind, often referred to as the sun’s crown.
What is the Corona SDK?
The Corona SDK is the first in Ansca's Corona family of products for creating high-performance multimedia applications and games for the iPhone. With Corona, you can quickly create iPhone applications in a matter of hours. No Objective-C/Cocoa required. No C++.
I am a Flash Developer
Excellent. The Corona framework is based on the Lua programming language. And we have made it very easy for Flash Developers to migrate over. If you look closely under the hood, you will see that Corona is pretty much like ActionScript 2.0. You will feel right at home and porting your Flash game or Flash app to Corona should be pretty straightforward.
What about performance?
Performance is our priority! The Corona frameworks is designed to have very low overhead, and makes full use of graphics acceleration hardware (OpenGL/ES), giving you up to full 30 frames per seconds for game animation.
Corona SDK
Why should I use Corona?
Because it makes iPhone application development easy. Corona allows you to focus on what you do best — create great iPhone apps — faster than ever!
What is included in the Corona SDK?
The SDK contains the Corona Simulator, the Corona debugger, a rapidly growing library of sample code, and lots of documentation. In fact, there's over 100 pages of documentation including a Getting Started guide, Device Build Guide, API reference, and a Programming Guide to help you create the next great iPhone app.
How do I download the SDK?
You can download a trial version of the Corona SDK — or buy it and distribute apps on the iPhone App Store!
Is the Corona SDK Trial available to anyone?
Yes! We're here to empower you. That's why the trial version of the Corona SDK is open for anyone who signs up. Anyone who wants to start building great iPhone applications should download it now!
What if I have never written any code before?
You should still download the trial and try it out. You'll be surprised at how easy it is. We also have other products in the works that are designed specifically for non-coders, so once you register, we'll be able to let you know what's coming and invite you to try out our latest innovations.
How much will it cost?
With the 30-day free trial you get the Corona Simulator, debugger, documentation, sample code, access to the Corona forum, and the ability to build iPhone apps for your own device. With the 30-day trial, you can't sell your app on the App store. Purchasing the Corona SDK gives you all the tools mentioned above, including a free 1 year membership in the Corona Developer Program, and it allows you to sell you app on the App Store. Your app, when built with the purchased edition of Corona, never expires.
Why does the SDK target iPhone OS and not Android, Palm Pre, Symbian, etc?
The iPhone is currently the target platform of choice for mobile developers. However, support for other smartphone platforms is currently in progress.
Can I distribute my app on the iPhone App Store?
Just purchase the Corona SDK and you'll be able to submit your very own app to the iPhone App Store. In fact, Corona developers are already distributing apps on the App Store. Check out some of the apps created by our customers, at our Customers Page.
Do I sell my app under my own identity, or do I need to go through Ansca?
Your Corona apps are distributed by you, under your own name, company name, or other identity. All we ask is that once your app has been accepted in the App Store, to let us know so we can put it up on our Customers Page.
Do you charge a royalty per app?
No. Unlike some other companies products or services, you will not be charged based on the number of apps you build or sell. We don't even put up an Ansca/Corona splash screen, or require any attributions to Ansca or Corona. That, we will leave it up to you.
What else will I need for iPhone builds?
You will need to sign up for the iPhone Developer Program, all iPhone apps in the App Store must be digitally signed with a valid Apple certificate. Once you join, download and install the iPhone SDK — we've included helpful instructions with the latest Corona SDK on how to create your own Apple certificates.
What are the system requirements to run the SDK?
Mac OS X 10.5.6+ (Intel or PPC), 1 GB RAM, and 50 MB of hard drive space. Due to Apple's code signing requirements, iPhone device builds require an Intel Mac, but if you currently have a PPC Mac, you can author and test applications in the Corona Simulator included with the Corona SDK.