Andre's Blog » iphone

Learn PhoneGap from The Experts in Seattle on March 11

Andre Charland — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:55:40 +0000

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!

PhoneGap’s Winning Pitch at Web 2.0 Expo

Andre Charland — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:14:16 +0000

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.

PhoneGap selected as a Launch Pad Finalist at Web 2.0 Expo

Andre Charland — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:36:29 +0000

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.

Nitobian Brian Leroux Talking Mobile JS at JSConf in April

Andre Charland — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:05:09 +0000

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.

eWeek Gives PhoneGap a Positive Review

Andre Charland — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:16:43 +0000

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

What is PhoneGap? The Movie

Andre Charland — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:32:15 +0000

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

PhoneGap Post on InfoWorld calls out RIM/Blackberry

Andre Charland — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:25:01 +0000

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*

The Future of Mobile Web with Chris Messina and Ryan Carson

Andre Charland — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:13:29 +0000

This morning I watched this discussion of the future of mobile apps with Chris Messian and Ryan Carson. They’ve both done their research on the subject, but as you can tell no one really knows where it’s all going to end up.

“Chris Messina on the topic of the future of mobile web development. We cover interesting issues like mobile web widgets, W3C standards, Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP), BONDI and PhoneGap.”

Interview with Chris Messina from Carsonified on Vimeo.

I agree with Chris that mobile browsers are going to get more powerful, and we hope we’ll get all the device level features we want from JS down the road. In the meantime PhoneGap will can play that role. Eventually we hope PhoneGap won’t have to exist at least in a compiled sense and just and standard API which may eventually become obsolete. Ah wouldn’t it be nice…

We’re really hoping something like BONDI, or BONDI itself, is the way to go. We’re just not sure if we can be the first ones to adopt it. Is anyone else implementing this?

Full Day PhoneGap Training – iPhone Development with JavaScript

Andre Charland — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:24:51 +0000

Brian Leroux and Brock Whitten will be in San Jose this Sunday March 1st at the 360|iDev. They’ll be giving a full day seminar on PhoneGap starting with the basics in the morning and helping you build your own iPhone Apps and working on the framework in the afternoon.

What you will learn:

* How to get started building PhoneGap applications
* An overview of Objective-C, Javascript API and XUI framework
* How to overcome barriers to cross-device development
* How to build applications for web-enabled devices with open standards
* How to test and deploy an application to a mobile device
* How to quickly and easily convert web applications to a native mobile app
* Differences in capabilities across devices
* How to retrofit existing web applications to utilize phone features

For more info on 360|iDev or to register go here.

PhoneGap Sprint 1

Andre Charland — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:13:40 +0000

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!