1

I want to develop a tablet app on PC with a Unity pro license so I need to use one of these options.

Do i…

Buy a Win RT tablet and use the Win8 pro license I get free with Unity Pro- £300

or

Buy an Android Pro license and develop on my current Android tablet- £800

Clearly the Win 8 option seems the best.

However, I guess the question really is…is there any disadvantage to developing for Windows RT? Is it as complete as Unity Android? I did read that I need to use Visual studio instead of Mono. Any other issues I should know before investing in a windows tablet?

3

So, it looks like anyone wanting to develop on PC for a tablet (as opposed to using a Mac>iPad) should really go with Android builds (PC>Android) for now. I was looking into the PC>Windows 8 route mainly because of the ‘free’ Windows 8 license in Unity 4.2 but I have discovered the following:

  • Windows 8 Store/Windows Phone 8
    builds aren’t yet fully featured by
    Unity. There are various classes
    missing (OnScreenKeyboard for one)
    which are found on Android/IOS.

  • Windows 8 Store/Windows Phone 8
    builds aren’t yet supported by many
    of the 3rd party tools bought on the
    asset store and elsewhere.

  • Javascript and Boo coders won’t be able to publish their builds to the
    Windows store yet because the current
    Unity version will not allow JS and
    Boo compiled projects to pass WACK. Also, as far as I can tell this means JS and Boo scripted projects won’t be allowed entry into the current Windows 8 competition.

  • More restrictions in 4.2 are listed here

  • A minor one, but as well as having
    Windows 8 (and a Windows 8 tablet)
    you’ll need to install Visual Express
    2012 and (I think) use that instead of MonoDevelop.(You CAN use the free version)

2

To your question about using the tablet for development…you will need a tablet that runs the full Win8 OS not just RT. Sounds like from your edit that you have a WIn8 surface tablet and that should work. I like the ASUS VivoTab as well.

You can use the express version of VS 2012 per getting started info: How to create your first app for Windows Phone 8 | Microsoft Learn
You need to register for a free key after 30 days, but you can get the express version here:
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng#downloads
I don’t know of any reason that a VS2010 version would not work though - I’ve developed mainly with VS2010 pro version for a while but I’ve also deployed from 2010 express.