Blogs

This is a very exciting time in the industry and for our team. However, it’s also a time of great change which is often met with skepticism and possibly some fear. Let’s get to the point: PhoneGap and all the code that makes it awesome is staying free and open source. Maybe more so than ever with our contribution to the Apache Software Foundation.

I feel the team at Nitobi and the rest of the of our contributors did a great job getting PhoneGap to where it is today. We shipped 1.0 this summer and have been making great progress since, in fact we just shipped PhoneGap 1.1 last week. It’s time to step on the gas and accelerate development of the platform, both from our team (now Adobe:)) and the wider community, which is why we’re putting PhoneGap in the Apache Software Foundation.

The issue of cross-platform app development is just now hitting mainstream attention and PhoneGap will come under increasing competitive threats. We think building on an open platform is essential to ensuring the web wins, and under Apache we can collaborate with all those who share this vision. No doubt we will compete with others and now we can do so with the support of Adobe, another company firmly committed to the web and cross platform tools and solutions.

We’ve built Nitobi on a bootstrap. We’ve built other great products over the years but now we’re on to something bigger and bolder. It’s really a movement around building apps and services with web technologies that run everywhere. We now need to focus our whole team on PhoneGap, PhoneGap Build and other tooling around HTML5 and JS development. The web and technologies that support it need fostering and support in an open manner. I’m excited to work on that!

We’re also launching PhoneGap Build with the help of a team that’s been building something awesome-cloud tools and infrastructure on top of Amazon Web Services. We’re committed to pushing forward with more cloud-based tooling and services that will help developers. We announced PhoneGap Build is in open beta last week and we’re getting ready to roll out for full on prime-time commercial use soon. We’ll be adding features and fixing bugs every day as usual. We’ll be honouring all existing client projects, support and training. We may be finding other partners and solutions to help deliver those services that are vital to the eco-system. Otherwise, it’s business as usual!

The whole team is moving to Adobe and this was very important to me. Some of us will move to SF to have more influence in the Adobe mothership and some of us will stay in Vancouver to continue to grow and foster the culture around the PhoneGap project that’s made it so great. I’m going to SF which is a great opportunity but I’ll miss the Vancouver office Kegerator. It’s really still just the beginning for PhoneGap and our team. The Nitobi team is amazing and they are some of the most talented, smart, creative, loyal and funny group of people I’ve ever worked with. I’m looking forward to continuing our journey together.

At Adobe, we will be able to focus and work together more closely than ever without the constraints and distractions you have when running a small business. I’m also excited to be joining some of the smartest minds in the industry at Adobe. Their contributions to open source and the web have largely flown under the radar. Adobe has 2 contributors to the WebKit project and have played a key role in the jQuery Mobile project. Now you tell me that WebKit + jQuery + PhoneGap don’t make up the most killer trio in the mobile web and app space. If you doubt Adobe’s intentions, it’s important to consider how Adobe makes money-it’s from tools, services and solutions not shipping runtimes.

Oh ya and given that I’m moving to California…I’ll probably learn how to surf too;-)

Today we’re excited to announce that we have entered into a definitive agreement with Adobe Systems Incoporated for Nitobi, including PhoneGap and PhoneGap Build. Here’s the news:

Adobe Announces Agreement to Acquire Nitobi, Creator of PhoneGap

Open Source HTML5 Mobile App Platform Accelerates Adobe’s HTML5 and Web Standards Strategy

LOS ANGELES – Oct. 3, 2011 – At its MAX 2011 technology conference, Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Nitobi Software, the creator of PhoneGap and PhoneGap Build. PhoneGap is a popular open source platform for easily building fast, cross-platform mobile applications with HTML5 and JavaScript. With PhoneGap, Adobe® will offer developers the choice of two powerful solutions for cross-platform development of native mobile apps, one using HTML5 and JavaScript with PhoneGap and the other using Adobe Flash® with Adobe AIR®. PhoneGap’s open source framework has been downloaded more than 600,000 times to date and thousands of applications built using PhoneGap are available in mobile app stores that span devices based on Android, iOS, BlackBerry and other operating systems.

“PhoneGap has proven to be an industry-defining app solution for HTML5 developers,” said Danny Winokur, vice president and general manager, Platform, Adobe. “PhoneGap is a fantastic solution for developing a broad range of mobile apps using the latest Web standards, and is already integrated with Dreamweaver® CS5.5. It’s a perfect complement to Adobe’s broad family of developer solutions, including Adobe AIR, and will allow us to continue to provide content publishers and developers with the best, cutting-edge solutions for creating innovative applications across platforms and devices.”

“Adobe has always been a big supporter of the open source community and at the forefront of enabling rich, Web based applications across screens,” said Andre Charland, chief executive officer, Nitobi. “We share the same philosophy about enabling extraordinary mobile and Web applications. Becoming part of the Adobe family with its industry-leading tools and technologies opens up amazing new opportunities for PhoneGap and our customers.”

“We are also excited to announce our donation of the PhoneGap code to the Apache Software Foundation,” said Dave Johnson, chief technology officer, Nitobi. “Adobe has been fully supportive of our decision, further demonstrating Adobe’s continued commitment to the developer and open source communities. The Apache Software Foundation’s model makes it possible for contributors to collaborate on open source product development and Adobe and Nitobi look forward to engaging with other community members to advance the PhoneGap technology.”

Nitobi is based in Vancouver, Canada and Nitobi’s employees are expected to join Adobe. The acquisition is subject to certain closing conditions and is expected to close by the end of October 2011. Terms were not disclosed.

Adobe today also released its third public preview of Adobe Edge, the new HTML5 motion and interaction design tool that is bringing Flash-like animation to websites and mobile apps using the latest capabilities of HTML, JavaScript and CSS. The new release contains innovative interactivity features and other additions suggested by the development community, and enables content creators to easily deliver a new level of visual richness to HTML5-only websites and mobile apps.

Adobe has also extended existing tools like Adobe Dreamweaver and Flash Professional to bring the next generation of Web standards to designers and developers who rely on those tools. Adobe today released the new CSS3 Mobile Pack for Adobe Fireworks®, which will enable designers to easily extract CSS3 from their design elements in Fireworks and quickly add them to their HTML based websites and mobile applications.

Adobe continues to work closely with the HTML5 community to make important contributions to the W3C and key open source projects like WebKit and JQuery. Adobe has co-authored with Microsoft and submitted to the W3C a proposal for CSS Regions, which enables sophisticated magazine-like layouts using Web standards. Adobe has also contributed a preliminary implementation of CSS Regions to the open source WebKit layout engine, which is already available in the latest builds of Chromium and the WebKit browser. Microsoft has made an implementation available in the latest preview release of Internet Explorer 10. In addition, Adobe today introduced a new proposal to the W3C, co-edited with other W3C members, called CSS Shaders that brings cinematic visual effects to HTML. Finally, Adobe announced that jQuery Mobile 1.0, a popular touch-optimized open source JavaScript framework to which Adobe is a leading contributor, was just made available as a Release Candidate (RC1) this week. Concurrent with this release will be a new version of ThemeRoller, which Adobe has rebuilt from the ground up to enable users to design custom jQuery user interface themes for tight integration in mobile Web projects.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

FAQ:

What does Nitobi do?
Nitobi is the creator and primary contributor to the open source PhoneGap framework, which allows developers to create device native mobile applications using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. They also operate a consulting business providing development, support, and training services for PhoneGap. You can find out more at the Nitobi and PhoneGap sites.

Why is Adobe acquiring Nitobi?
Adobe is committed to enabling efficient, expressive design and development across devices. PhoneGap is a leading solution for cross-platform mobile development using web standards, and we’re excited to support PhoneGap’s growth by committing resources to the
development of the open source project. We integrated support for PhoneGap in Dreamweaver CS5.5, and with this acquisition we will also be bringing PhoneGap’s capabilities to a much broader range of new and existing Adobe customers though a paid hosted service, PhoneGap Build, which is currently in prerelease.

This investment reinforces Adobe’s commitment to helping their customers be even more expressive, regardless of the technology and is in line with recent product releases such as Adobe Edge and Adobe Muse (code name), as well as all of the innovation with community driven projects including contributions to the jQuery mobile UI framework and Webkit for layout and typography functionality.

What underlying technology will Adobe acquire?
While the PhoneGap framework continues to be open source and is being contributed to the Apache Software Foundation, PhoneGap Build incorporates additional proprietary code allowing developers to build their apps from anywhere without installing mobile platform SDKs.

Why is Nitobi donating the PhoneGap code to Apache?
Nitobi is pursuing a contribution of the PhoneGap code to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) to ensure open stewardship of the project over the long term. As part of that process it will be renamed to a new Apache-branded name Callback. Adobe fully supports this contribution and will continue to host the PhoneGap community site with full participation from its contributors, as well as the PhoneGap Build service.

Where do I go to get support?
Customers should go through Nitobi’s existing support channels.

Today we’re launching a new PhoneGap Facebook Platform Plugin. With more than 250 million people accessing Facebook on their phone each month, this is sure to be a popular plugin. Here’s the news:

PhoneGap Facebook Platform Plugin Polishes Log In Experience for Mobile Users

Vancouver, BC-August 30, 2011-Nitobi Inc., the creators of the popular PhoneGap mobile app development framework, announce today the launch of the PhoneGap Facebook Platform plugin. The new plugin makes it easy for developers building mobile apps with PhoneGap to simplify the log in process for apps that retrieve and use Facebook data.

The Facebook Platform lets users log in to a web page or mobile app using their Facebook login credentials. An example of a popular website that uses this single sign-on functionality is The New York Times. Users can log in to The New York Times website by using the “Login with Facebook” button, after which the application uses Facebook identity data to verify the user.

Facebook provides a JavaScript software development kit (SDK) that makes it possible for web developers to implement “Login with Facebook”. However, the SDK poses a challenge for PhoneGap developers because the Facebook sign on process uses the OAuth 2.0 standard, which doesn’t always translate gracefully for their apps.

“We got working on a Facebook plugin because we’re user experience advocates,” said Dave Johnson, CTO at Nitobi Inc. “The OAuth authentication workflow for a mobile app isn’t ideal so we created the PhoneGap Facebook plugin as a way to streamline that process and improve the experience for the end user.”

The plugin uses the same application programming interface (API) as Facebook’s JavaScript SDK. But, instead of replicating the workflow users are accustomed to in desktop web browsers it works with the native Facebook application installed on many iOS and Android smartphones. The end result is a more streamlined and graceful log in experience. Plus, it’s easy to implement. Developers wrap their web app in PhoneGap and this plugin, add one line of code, and single sign-on automatically works.

Creating a better user experience was the inspiration for the Facebook plugin, but the PhoneGap community’s enthusiasm for plugins drove the project. “The PhoneGap community is really behind plugins, which is why it was a major focus in the recent PhoneGap 1.0 release. Continuing to improve and expand PhoneGap plugins is a big part of the PhoneGap agenda,” said Brian LeRoux, Senior Vice President of Software Development and Director of Developer Relations at Nitobi, and PhoneGap Evangelist.

You can download the Facebook plugin for a PhoneGap app here.

About Nitobi
Nitobi is the creator of PhoneGap an open source development tool for building fast, easy, cross-platform mobile apps with HTML and JavaScript that take advantage of core features of Apple iOS, Google Android, HP webOS, Nokia Symbian, Samsung Bada and BlackBerry SDKs. The open source code has been downloaded more than 600,000 times and thousands of apps built using PhoneGap are available in mobile app stores and directories.

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Today we’re celebrating the launch of PhoneGap 1.0 at PhoneGap Day in Portland! Kudos to the PhoneGap community who has so generously contributed time and expertise to the project. We’ll be toasting you and all your efforts today!

PhoneGap 1.0 Released Today at First-Ever PhoneGap Day in Portland
Popular Open Source Mobile Development Framework Gets Upgrades Including More Access to Native Device APIs and Debugging Tools

Nitobi Inc., the creators of the popular PhoneGap mobile app development framework, releases PhoneGap 1.0 today at the first-ever PhoneGap Day in Portland, Oregon.

PhoneGap, an HTML5 platform, allows developers to use foundation web technology (HTML, CSS and JavaScript) to create native mobile applications. Using PhoneGap, developers can write their app once and deploy it to six major mobile platforms and app stores, including iOS, Android, BlackBerry, webOS, Bada and Symbian. PhoneGap has been widely recognized as a game-changer for mobile app development. The open source code is downloaded approximately 40,000 times every month, more than 600,000 times in total.

Today’s major release puts the focus on accessing native device APIs, which is new ground for the web. Other improvements include:

* Overall API stability and “pluggable” architecture
* W3C DAP API compatibility
* Contacts API
* Remove debugging tools

Today’s release also includes a new unifying bridge interface that makes adding platforms and platform extensions easy. Plus, developers will be pleased to see that the plugin development process has been simplified.

“Most of these new enhancements come from our community,” said Brian LeRoux, Senior Software Engineer at Nitobi and PhoneGap evangelist. “For instance, PhoneGap developers were calling for a consistent way to make plugins that would run on all major smartphone platforms and this release does that.”

“The community built up around PhoneGap is its greatest asset,” says Nitobi CEO Andre Charland. “The PhoneGap community identifies common pain points and works together to overcome them.” Contributors include Nitobi, hundreds of individual developers and a team of senior software engineers at IBM whose commitment and contributions to PhoneGap development has been a major benefit to the community.

IBM isn’t the only Fortune 500 to show interest in PhoneGap. Earlier this year, Adobe integrated PhoneGap into Dreamweaver so that developers can package apps with PhoneGap and launch iOS and Android emulators directly from within Dreamweaver. Other companies to adopt PhoneGap and its cross-platform philosophy include IBM, Alcatel-Lucent, Sabre, Cisco, Logitech and Time Warner.

About Nitobi Inc.
Nitobi is the creator of PhoneGap (http://www.phonegap.com) an open source development tool for building fast, easy, cross-platform mobile apps with HTML and JavaScript that take advantage of core features of Apple iOS, Google Android, HP webOS, Nokia Symbian, Samsung Bada and BlackBerry SDKs. The open source code has been downloaded more than 600,000 times and thousands of apps built using PhoneGap are available in mobile app stores and directories.

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I just finished my talk at Under The Radar down in Mountain View. The 6min format was intense and I’m glad I did…good to sharpen the presentation skills once in a while.

Here’s the video:

Video streaming by Ustream

And here’s a video of the Q & A:

Video streaming by Ustream

And finally here’s my slides: (please note the mullet business model on slide 14)

And boy the Deal Maker Media crew our fast getting these videos and blogs out almost instantly.

will be giving a talk on HTML5 and PhoneGap the Where 2.0 Conf April 19 2011 in Santa Clara.

HTML5 promises to pave the way for easy, device-neutral mobile app development. But, until HTML5 supports sophisticated cross-platform apps, developers are stuck building native apps for various mobile devices. Or are they?

In this session you’ll learn how combining HTML5 with the open source PhoneGap (www.phonegap.com) framework bridges the gap between what’s possible with HTML5 today and the engaging mobile apps developers want to build. See how HTML5 and PhoneGap work together and learn how to expose device features outside of the existing HTML5 spec, such as camera.

By learning to combine PhoneGap with HTML5, developers no longer have to commit to native development, nor do they need to wait for a mature HTML5 spec to build full-featured, cross-platform apps in HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Track Dave and down to say hi or go for a beer if you have any burning PhoneGap questions:)

We’re very excited that Adobe has now announced their support for PhoneGap! The gist of is it is now you can package your apps with PhoneGap and launch the iOS and Android emulators directly from within Dreamweaver. This version of Dreamweaver also bakes in support for jQuery Mobile which is one of the most popular frameworks used inside PhoneGap. I think this is awesome! This a big move forward for Adobe embracing mobile, open standards (HTML5), the mobile web and open source!

Scott Fegette, Dreamweaver Product Manager, has the most in depth write up on it. Here’s a snipit.

For Android, the complex process of installing, configuring, and verifying the Android SDK has always been a bit of a chore. Dreamweaver CS5.5 takes all the pain out of this process by providing an “easy install” option, which will do all of the above for you in the background. Although the Apple iOS SDK tools are subject to a different licensing model (and only available on the Mac platform), once you’ve installed the Apple iOS SDK (or Xcode from the Mac App Store), you simply point Dreamweaver CS5.5 to the /Developer directory on your hard drive and you’re ready to go.

Greg Rewis senior evangelist at Adobe also has a great post on the topic and video explaining how it all works:

PhoneGap is all about making mobile app development easier and more accessible to broad audience of web developers out there do getting in bed with Dreamweaver is a great step in that direction.

One thing the Adobe folk don’t promote as much as I think they should is the fact that web developers can call native apis like camera, contacts, notifications etc from PhoneGap now within Dreamweaver. That’s at least as exciting as packaging for app stores:)

If this blog post seems a day late and a dollar short I apologize. I obviously new this functionality was coming out in Dreamweaver, but no one at Adobe told us they were launching yesterday:P Next time!

Be sure to check out the official Adobe blog post for more info on new features in Adobe Creative Suite 5.5.

PS. Please excuse their typo on the opening slide of video. It’s PhoneGap not Phone Gap. I’m sure it was just video production company who just didn’t know what’s up! 🙂

Bryce Curtis (aka PhoneGap super contributor) and Todd E. Kaplinger are giving a talk at the IBM Impact2011 conference this week. “TDD-1852A : Building Mobile Applications with PhoneGap”

Here’s the description:

“With mobile applications, one of the first choices is which technology direction a developer should take. Developers may choose to develop native applications, or develop browser-based applications using HTML and CSS to give an appearance similar to native devices. With native applications, the programming model and languages are not common across all devices; with browser-based applications, you can’t access all of the capabilities included on mobile devices. This is where PhoneGap comes in. PhoneGap is an open source development framework for building cross-platform mobile apps. Build apps in HTML and JavaScript and still take advantage of core features in iPhone/iPod touch, iPad, Google Android, Palm, Symbian and Blackberry SDKs.”

Details:
When: Mon, 11/Apr, 05:15 PM – 06:30 PM
Where: Venetian – Marcello 4403

If you go please say hi and a big THANK YOU to Bryce from everyone at Nitobi and the PhoneGap team.

IBM’s uber friendly website won’t actually let me link to it. But if you go here and search ‘phonegap’ you’ll find it no problem.

I’m speaking at CTIA as part of the of the Mobile Web and Apps event. I’m going to be giving a quick overview of HTML5 and the open web community and trying to make the case for folks to build their dev stack on top top of it. That’s the short version…here’s the long winded conference abstract version:

Mobile apps are a must-have for any Fortune 500, Internet start-up or enterprising hacker. That being said these developers all have different interests needs. It’s important to help them all but it’s important understand what they’re looking for.
So, how can you add mobile to your mix and build out an app ecosystem in an effortless, economical way? By using the most flexible, open and cost-effective technologies available — HTML5 and open source.
There’s a lot more to HTM5 than a spec from W3C there’s a growing movement of HTML and JavaScripts developers working on building a better mobile world for users. We just have to enable them.
In this session, open source pundit and PhoneGap creator Andre Charland will demonstrate how building apps using open standards and open source produces better apps at a lower cost than native development. You’ll learn how HTML5 can be combined with free development frameworks and tools to build fully functional,
platform-neutral apps that are future-proofed for what’s to come in
phones, tablets and beyond.

Update here’s my presentation:

My talk is at 3:20pm but there’s a tonne of interesting presentations and panels before and after. Come on by and hang out.

If you know of any other PhoneGap talks please let me know. The best is probably twitter. Failing that just come find me at SeaWorld!

If you’re interest in learning more about PhoneGap at SXSW 2011 be sure to check out the following sessions:

Building Native Apps Across Platforms
Brian LeRoux, David Kaneda, Jonathan Stark

One Codebase, Endless Possibilities: Real HTML5 Hacking
Joe Mccann

Cross-Platform Multi-Screen Development
Brian Leroux, Daniel Dura, Christian Cantrell, Jonathan Campos, Mark Miller

Of course will be kicking around for a few days so track him down and pick his brain or buy him a beer.