There was a very nice post by one of InfoWorld’s open source bloggers, Savio Rodriguez, this morning about PhoneGap. It was the last paragraph calling our RIM that really caught my attention though…
“If I worked at RIM, I’d take a trip out to Vancouver to talk to the Nitobi dudes. This framework is exactly what RIM needs to counter the trend of developers targeting the iPhone/iPod as the premier environment for mobile device applications. RIM has the brand and market share to persuade developers that writing once and targeting three key mobile platforms is the best use of a mobile developer’s effort. RIM would need to adopt WebKit as the rendering engine for their browser, but that is going to happen anyway. ;-)”
No doubt Rodriguez! My thoughts exactly. Coincidentally we just got a email from someone at RIM:) We think because easy iPhone/iPod Touch development is the carrot and closs platform is the true long term value in PhoneGap every other mobile platform (Window Mobile, Nokia/Symbian, BlackBerry, Android and Palm Pre) should be bending over backwards to help us get PhoneGap running with their OS and APIs. Maybe they all appear to be laggards today for a reason? ;-) *gloves off*
“Herman Wong will be presenting on PureMVC. PureMVC is a lightweight framework for creating applications based upon the classic Model, View and Controller concept. Herman is a Flex / Air Developer for Nitobi.”
The event is Thursday at WorkSpace in Vancouver. Go here to register.
I was recently asked to help out Jiibe, a start up client of ours, with a fun project. They’ve created Jiibe Connection, a video contest where you try to match a job seeker to the appropriate employer. The three employers are from three actual Vancouver companies including (obviously) Nitobi.
Here’s my entire interview with Darren and Julie.
I’m not doing so well in the results, but that’s just because the jobseeker isn’t cool enough to work at Nitobi. What do you think is holding me back as an employer?
a) my beard
b) my sarcasm (notice the interviewers laughing during my interview)
c) the fact Nitobi doesn’t go bowling as company
d) none of the above
Anyway go watch the video and vote for me and Nitobi!
The first PhoneGap sprint wrapped up this weekend. We started Friday with about 15 folks squished into the Nitobi boardroom for Pizza, a quick explanation and game plan delivered by Brock Whitten.
Here’s a quick summary of what we accomplished on the various platforms now in the PhoneGap umbrella.
iPhone
Added network detection
Notify user if no network is detected
Memory clean ups
Made default image/screen more intelligent
Android
Accelerometer
Basic camera support
Offline support
Bugs fixed
Blackberry
GPS is totally working with the W3C API (maybe some error states don’t work but we’ll get there)
Camera works
Mapping works
Phone calls work
Vibration works
*Not all the Blackberry stuff is checked in yet.
We also cleaned up wiki the wiki a bunch. The new PhoneGap site is almost ready to push live too.
What’s next? We need to get all the JavaScript APIs in sync. Check the roadmap for more info. The website will be up shortly. Stay tuned for the Translink case study too.
Nitobi sends a big thanks to the Handi mobility guys , EffectiveUI and everyone else who came out!
Duane stopped by the Nitobi Office earlier this year to chat with me about RIAs, what we do and where it’s all going. We also chat a bit about RobotReplay.
I wasn’t sure where it was all heading, but I guess I ended up on the first episode of Duane’s World for Adobe TV. Very cool. If you think you have a topic that would be good for Duane’s show leave me a comment and I’ll put you in touch.
I should call out that Adobe has done a great job with the content and UI of Adobe TV but has failed to provide clean URLs that are actually updated in the address bar. Thus it’s kind of a pain to find and share URLs and impossible to navigate with back button. Too bad it would be so easy to make it a great example of public facing Flex RIA. Someone _high_ and Adobe really needs to start hammering this sort of thing home if Adobe is going to successfully make the leap to Saas and web services. I guess it’s not enough to have Kevin Lynch talking about it. I also can’t resize this video, so it’s best to go to Adobe TV to watch it.
[Disclaimer Duane's a good friend and on Nitobi's Advisory Board]
Earlier this year I was interviewed for an article on RIAs in ComputerWorld (sorry you need an account to log in).
Here’s an excerpt:
Developer: Nitobi Software Inc., Vancouver Project: Nitobi Complete UI is a set of nine user interface components for rich Internet applications. They’re
designed to help RIA developers save time by plugging in whichever Nitobi modules they need rather than
recreating the functions themselves. They include, for example, a spreadsheet module called Grid, a Calendar
module, and ComboBox, for completing data-entry fields by searching a database as the user types. How it works: All the Nitobi Complete UI components are written in HTML and JavaScript. Nitobi has offered the
components since 2004, but more recently has used Adobe AIR to give them the ability to work offline as well as
online. That means users can transfer data between their desktops and the Web more seamlessly, says Andre
Charland, Nitobi’s chief executive, and they can take data such as contact lists with them even when not connected
to the Internet. Best practices: If you take the time to understand what AIR can do, says Charland, “it’s amazing to me how close
we can get to traditional desktop software.†The key is understanding and fully exploiting its capabilities.
For instance, he says, AIR can provide native access to Flash on the desktop, and it’s possible to call Adobe’s
ActionScript directly from JavaScript.
Because AIR is still in beta, he notes, it remains a “moving target†for developers. Nitobi tries to deal with that by
being very open with its customers about ways in which things could change.
Obviously things I said didn’t come through in the translations and AIR is 1.0 now it’s more stable. Other than that it’s a nice plug.
Dave Johnson will be giving a talk on JavaScript and DOM Design Patterns at Community One.
There is a hole in the current knowledge and practice of user interface development, even though most Ajax developers confront UI development on a daily basis. Although design patterns have been around for a while, little attention has been paid to the HTML Document Object Model (DOM). This presentation uses several concrete examples to explore the need for and application of DOM design patterns.
This presentation shows why DOM patterns are consequential, given the complex and often misunderstood interplay between the DOM, DOM events, and JavaScriptâ„¢ technology-particularly event ordering, bubbling and capture, and event triggers.
In this presentation, attendees will learn how to use the JavaScript programming language to write succinct, useful libraries that address key DOM design patterns such as composite controls. They will leave with an understanding of how DOM design patterns can help speed web development and result in more-robust solutions. They will also learn about various repeatable patterns that can be applied to DOM scripting, specifically how DOM events and JavaScript technology work together.
Mark your calendars for Monday, May 5th at 11am. CommunityOne is free and you also get the first day of JavaOne for free so you’ve got no excuses!
That same day we’re going to be hanging out and participating in the RedMonk unconference track. Our areas of focus are going to be the business of RIAs and some advanced topics in Ajax development.
The RedMonk Unconference: expect a rich mix of open source, dynamic languages, development in general, Java, social media high jinks, and all of the usual things you’d expect from the industry’s first open source analyst company. This year we plan a Rich Internet Panel (with JavaFX, Adobe, Nitobi, and other folks) and a discussion about the Mylyn Eclipse personal productivity IDE, with a special appearance by Atlassian’s Mike Cannon Brooks. This is the CommunityOne unconference by you, for you, so please come along and set the agenda.
Dion and I were (again) the two Ajax-tag-alongs on the OnAIR Tour in Europe. So we had a quick chat about what Nitobi has been up to with our Ajax components.
We’re pretty excited to be starting a new project that allows users to make low cost calls and sms with their existing phones over VOIP. The client is Verb Exchange another Vancouver startup that specializes in VOIP. They originally went down the .Net path but have now selected Flex/AIR for the user experience and platform portability.
With Tabrio, users choose from web, desktop or mobile access to place high-quality long distance calls or send and receive SMS text messages to anywhere in the world. It utilizes existing networks to provide best-of-breed call quality, while still offering VoIP’s significant cost savings. Additional features allow users to synchronize their contacts, send instant messages, and perform web searches from directly within the application.
“Tabrio targets the millions of people around the world who need a better way to stay in touch. Our goal is for those people to download Tabrio and understand it immediately,” says Christian Jensen, VP, Products and Services, Verb Exchange. “That’s where Nitobi excels. Their work will translate directly to more users, higher customer satisfaction, and increased profits.”
The interactive UI is being developed with Adobe Flex, a Flash-based rich Internet application (RIA) development framework, and the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), a platform that enables RIAs to run on the desktop. Flex and AIR were chosen for the ability to deliver highly interactive applications that deploy consistently in all major browsers on Mac and PC.
I’m in a rush to get out the door to NY and Europe…but stay for more updates on this exciting app.
