Blogs

The guys over at Tiny Hippos have been kicking ass on their mobile dev emulator Ripple. It’s a Chrome Extension that helps develop PhoneGap apps by simulating data from PhoneGap APIs.

Check out this PhoneGap Geo demo in Ripple:

Can’t wait to see what this crew does next! Check out their blog post on it here.

Here at Nitobi we’re excited to be contributing PhoneGap to the Symbian Web Runtime. PhoneGap will now be included as part of the web extensions package in the Symbian^3 platform.

By contributing code that converts PhoneGap APIs to the Symbian WRT API, we’ve made it easier for Symbian developers to write applications using PhoneGap. You no longer need to include any extra code which, of course, makes deployment faster.

PhoneGap developers benefit by getting even better support for the Symbian WRT platform.

PhoneGap supports WRT 1.1 and implements these APIs: geolocation, accelerometer, camera, vibration, contacts, SMS, sounds, orientation change and storage. The network availability API is under development.

If you’re new to PhoneGap, it’s worth checking out. PhoneGap is an open source development framework for building cross-platform mobile apps that run on Symbian as well as iPhone/iTouch/iPad, Google Android, Palm and Blackberry. The PhoneGap open source code has been downloaded more than 250K times and there are thousands of PhoneGap apps in app stores and directories.

As the calendar flips over to April, we’re stoked about some of the things Nitobi is up to this month. For starters, we’ll be at JSConf in Washington DC from April 17-18, 2010. If you haven’t been to JSConf you’re missing out on one of the best JavaScript programming events of the year. It’s sold out this year-likely because the theme is pirates-but be sure to put it on your calendar for 2011.

While we’re at JSConf, we’ll be connecting with the good people of Washington DC for a PhoneGap training session. We’ve been having a great time spreading the PhoneGap love across North America and we hope you’ll join us for this full-day workshop on April 16, 2010. You’ll learn how to build mobile applications in HTML and JavaScript while still taking advantage of core features of the Android, iPhone, Blackberry, Symbian and Palm.

The Latham Hotel, 3000 M Street NW
Washington DC
April 16, 2010
9:30 am - 4:30 pm

Register today for the Washington DC PhoneGap Training Workshop.

See you in the Capital!

Learn the easiest way to use HTML, CSS and JavaScript to build cross-platform mobile apps.

Creators of PhoneGap, a ground-breaking mobile application development framework, will show web developers how to build mobile applications in HTML and JavaScript while still taking advantage of core features of iPhone, Google Android, Blackberry, Symbian and Palm mobile devices. This full-day PhoneGap training session takes place in Seattle on March 11, 2010. Attendees can register at http://mobileappdevtraining5.eventbrite.com/.

PhoneGap gained widespread recognition last year when the project won the LaunchPad competition at Web 2.0 Expo. Since then, hundreds, even thousands, of PhoneGap applications have been built and submitted to the Apple app store and directories.

In the training session, you’ll learn how to use your HTML/JavaScript skills to build app store ready applications for mobile platforms including iPhone, Google Android, Blackberry, Symbian and Palm. At the completion of this course, you’ll be able to:

• Set up your development environment
• Compile for multiple platforms
• Run code in a emulator
• Debug your HTML and JavaScript
• Access native APIs, including location, camera, accelerometer, contacts, and more via JavaScript
• Optimize your JavaScript for mobile devices
• Make security considerations
• Build a mobile application that runs offline
• Use CSS transitions, animations and transforms to create native looking interfaces
• Use the Canvas for advanced graphics
• Use mobile JS libraries, such as XUI and Dashcode to build mobile applications faster

Event Details
March 11, 2010 from 9:30 am - 4:30 pm
Fee: $499 USD
World Trade Center, 2200 Alaskan Way, Seattle WA
Register: http://mobileappdevtraining5.eventbrite.com/

Hope to see you there!

Earlier this month we were selected to present at the Web 2.0 Expo’s LaunchPad event, and even better we won the people’s choice award!! I was stoked, the whole team was! It was a big honor. I think my presentation was OK, but it’s really the team, the idea and the community behind PhoneGap that made it a winner!

Here’s my 5 min talk:

Here’s the questions from the judges:

The media, customer and investor interest we’ve had since has been nothing short of amazing.

Joe and I were on the Motorola Android Developer podcast this Wednesday morning. Enjoy.

The whole team at Nitobi is honored to have been picked as one of 5 companies out of 80 to present at the Launch Pad event at Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. I get 5 minutes to convince a panel of judges and the crowd (voting in real-time with sms) that PhoneGap is the hottest technology product launching at the event. It’s described as “American Idol” for business…no pressure;-)

“For 2009, we continue the tradition of showcasing innovative and promising new companies at Web 2.0 Expo. While the definition of a launch has gotten cloudy in this age of public betas, we’re looking for new companies or products that make us take notice. And while venture capital has been the focus in past years, the reality of the market is that companies must gain the attention of customers. So our judging panel and criteria this year focus more on what is essential and transformational in today’s market than on ability to get funded. Along the way, we’re sure the VCs in the crowd will find several startups they’d like to talk to!”

Good luck to the other presenter and I hope we all manage to provide some value or at least entertainment to the crowd.

The event is at 1:15-2:15pm Thursday April 2nd in the Keynote Room (Ballroom - 3rd Level).

I have 2 free passes is anyone is interested. Just leave a comment or email me.

Brian’s going to be talking to web devs and Ajax hackers at JSConf in Washington DC April 24th and 25th about:

PhoneGap makes building iPhone and Android applications a snap with regular HTML, CSS and JavaScript. XUI is a nifty javascript microframework designed for building mobile web applications. Avoid the heresy of Objective-C or Java and return to the sanity of the open web. In this talk Brian will guide you through the creation of a mobile web app that is app store ready and talk a little about the future platforms for PhoneGap and XUI.

On Friday Darryl Taft of eWeek wrote a very nice post on PhoneGap.

“Nitobi Inc.’s PhoneGap is catching on with smartphone application developers who want to avoid the pitfalls of writing to different phone platforms. PhoneGap is a development framework that lets HTML and JavaScript developers build native mobile phone apps that take advantage of native capabilities of the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry.”

My favorite quote is from a member of the PhoneGap community and developer:

“PhoneGap has cut my iPhone development time in half, which has been good news for my clients.” Nathan Freitas

We’ve been fielding the question “What is PhoneGap?” more and more these past couple months. So we put together this short video to help explain it:)

Get the code and more at PhoneGap.com