Delphi for Mobile Applications

[Delfanbuoi 1]

Around 2016-2017 I prototyped an app for Android & IOS that pulled patient data from an oracle database and supplied that data to a GUI. At first I planned on using FMX exclusively for screens, but found that although the screens worked well, they were most definitely not performant with FMX controls and screen draws. So I went back to the drawing board and utilizing Oracle stored procedures, kbmMW (middleware, awesome!), and the web browser control on both platforms, I pulled the data in the stored procs, built HTML in the stored procs, used kbmMW to ship it to the clients, and created a tabbed interface using native controls, with all content areas displayed in the embedded web browser. 

 

The generation of the html in Oracle was instantaneous, the transfer of the html content using kbmMW was instantaneous on the local network, and display performance was quite good. I've heard that SKIA has better performance for UI draws; since we are talking about small device graphics, UI performance will always be an area that requires special attention. As the examples above show, Delphi is quite capable of creating complex, highly performant mobile UI's; minimal conditional defines are required, all of your existing Delphi source/servers/application logic is available to you. It allows you to work within a familiar environment, utilizing ONE(1) toolchain - albeit with some 3rd party stuff potentially - and has excellent performance. 

 

The cost of using Delphi for mobile is really measured not in the purchase price of Delphi, nor of 3rd party components, but in the learning curve. It's a different programming paradigm, so the ability to utilize just ONE(1) tool that you are familiar with greatly minimizes the time to learn how to work with mobile. Native combined with RAD will get you to the expert level with mobile faster than other environments/languages/tools with which you may not have any experience.

 

Another nice example app: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/piotr-stefanowicz-035465294_delphi-tms-web-core-pwa-prodvisor-application-ugcPost-7283126982035345409-m4HG?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Edited January 10 by Delfanbuoi
spelling correction, readability

[tomye 5]

On 1/5/2025 at 1:29 AM, Patrick PREMARTIN said:

Thank you for these clarifications. Seen from this angle, the choice was a logical one.  🙂

i finished the rknn frame to Delphi and opensource it , see at https://github.com/13501714030/rknn4Delphi

 

[tomye 5]

On 1/5/2025 at 1:29 AM, Patrick PREMARTIN said:

Thank you for these clarifications. Seen from this angle, the choice was a logical one.  🙂

i finished the rknn frame to Delphi and opensource it , see at https://github.com/13501714030/rknn4Delphi

 

[Rollo62 550]

@tomye Thanks, thats a very interesting project.

That makes Rockchip an interesting option, when it comes to neural networks.

I assume that you run this project under Android.

There are at least some boards in the market that come with Android naturally, are these boards supported by Delphi out-of-the-box,
like a Samsung or Pixel phone, or do we need special drivers or other measures, drivers or modules to make it compatible?
 

Maybe you can tell us also something about the hardware you used too, which would be needed to run that smoothly?

I assume a Firefly board would be a good choice, but it seems also to be quite costly, about 200 -300 USD.

https://en.t-firefly.com/doc/download/207.html

 

While a Radxa Rock 5A is available from 22 USD, I would expect from the data that it has NPU too, perhaps there are some drawbacks for that price.

https://radxa.com/products/rock5/5a/

 

I have not checked where the differences in detail are, I assume both support the NPU in the same way, but I'm not an Rockchip expert.

Maybe there are subtle differences in the Rockchip model code, which lead to biggers differences, which CPU model will be the most promising?

 

Do you have recommendations for some capable Rockchip boards for testing, maybe there are many other boards than the two above,
which are newer and more powerful, I'm not aware of.
 

Edited February 16 by Rollo62

[tomye 5]

14 hours ago, Rollo62 said:

@tomye Thanks, thats a very interesting project.

That makes Rockchip an interesting option, when it comes to neural networks.

I assume that you run this project under Android.

There are at least some boards in the market that come with Android naturally, are these boards supported by Delphi out-of-the-box,
like a Samsung or Pixel phone, or do we need special drivers or other measures, drivers or modules to make it compatible?
 

Maybe you can tell us also something about the hardware you used too, which would be needed to run that smoothly?

I assume a Firefly board would be a good choice, but it seems also to be quite costly, about 200 -300 USD.

https://en.t-firefly.com/doc/download/207.html

 

While a Radxa Rock 5A is available from 22 USD, I would expect from the data that it has NPU too, perhaps there are some drawbacks for that price.

https://radxa.com/products/rock5/5a/

 

I have not checked where the differences in detail are, I assume both support the NPU in the same way, but I'm not an Rockchip expert.

Maybe there are subtle differences in the Rockchip model code, which lead to biggers differences, which CPU model will be the most promising?

 

Do you have recommendations for some capable Rockchip boards for testing, maybe there are many other boards than the two above,
which are newer and more powerful, I'm not aware of.
 

the rknn4Delphi only supports ROCKCHIP chip's products, the Android must be run under their chip then you can use the rknn4Delphi 

 

i highly recommond the ORGANGEPI, see at http://www.orangepi.org/

 

their product which is named Pi5B, only USD80, built-in rk3588s, has 3 cores of NPU and their Pi3B built-in rk3566 with single core of NPU only USD35

 

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=711193432489&pisk=g9fZbVThj5FN8X_PA_AqLFRKUGY6ZIr77stXoZbD5hxMfssVoEYrjfvMnwYHuHGbWCwvgi-FDh96ssWKgaQA1PdbWCQ9MIq7V7tVWNdYhJswxsRH-ET8GxcMSCd3fiHiJ7N5Wwu6Sz_3N19k4vYinjjDIpAHkHcmihjDtHY9xfYmsIx38HLDiFDMmvmHyEDMSnjmxBYXuVcMmhvH-FLwinjmsy7HvElMvsfZThJguGofCuDLydKlSHlma4LwIu7Zhjl2PFvNZZKFd91e7d-WpGoWN1jCo119p-D2Mw6P0tjYFvdNoOAMPNFZTQbGds8CGrM2jGCF-19EzbRNnGC2BOuYywAGvTKJIJEp811W33pExlbC8hvP3GZKih6P-MJ5ODGWMMBcmESnbgPqDe0JcsHEixJMJe-78yPvSj2ba-JoTxHvKyLeVzzrHxpGve-78ykxHpYJ83azz&spm=a1z10.1-c-s.w4004-23020891405.24.52168ec18wwe34&skuId=4983526316401

 

 

[Rollo62 550]

Thanks, I know the OrangePi company, I will check that board.

Thats a reasonable price, if so much variation in prices exists, its good to have a recommendation like yours.