PhoneGap
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Google creating a tool to port Chrome apps to Android and iOS
Google's been shepherding web applications to the desktop as packaged Chrome apps (think the browser-based Google Keep) for a while now, and it turns out the search titan is building a tool to help them go mobile. The Next Web noticed that Googler Michal Mocny has been hard at work on a project dubbed Mobile Chrome Apps that's been hosted on Github since May. The repository's description reveals the code is a toolkit for porting Chrome packaged apps to ones that will run on Android and iOS by using Apache Cordova (formerly known as PhoneGap). Though the applications will retain their HTML, CSS and Javascript innards, they'll look like native apps and can even be submitted to their respective app stores. While the software is publicly available, it's not expected to be in beta form until January. Ready to lunge into development anyway? Venture to the source and hack away.
Ripoff apps plague some iOS developers
Update: Some of the Tamsong apps have already begun disappearing from the store. Near-clone apps in the iOS App Store? It's not a new phenomenon, by any means; last week, developer Anton Sinelnikov had the bulk of his app library yanked from the store for plagiarism. In fact, high-profile app launches like RealMac Software's Clear can find themselves with unwanted "tribute" apps even before they arrive in the store. For major developers like EA or Rovio, it usually doesn't take too long to rouse Apple's app cops to clear out the duplicates, but less well-connected devs may find themselves frustrated by copies that don't get the attention of the authorities. Apple does indeed have a feedback page for this issue, so that's obviously the first thing to try. Alan Scully of Breaking Art was surprised to discover this week that some of his apps (Flickr HD, Beer In Japan & more) had identical twins in the App Store, all from a single developer: Tamsong Co. In fact, he found out that all the Tamsong (or Tamsung) apps appear to be clones of other developers' work: devs like e-MedTools, Primolicious and others have doppelganger apps in the Tamsong library. The first question that came to mind: are these apps actually cloned, or just very similar efforts? Second question, how is it possible to make such convincing app copies? And third, what is Apple going to do about punting this xerographic developer out of the store? Answering question one: These are clones, no two ways about it. Check out the evidence for one example, Beer O'Clock from Breaking Art (thanks to Erica Sadun for digging into the app contents). Pricing: Identical Beer O'Clock! $0.99 from Breaking Art, Released: Feb 24, 2010 Beer O'Clock+ $0.99 from Tamsong, Released Feb 10, 2012 Interfaces: Identical Breaking Art Tamsung Looking under the hood The app .ipa files are actually different sizes. What about the components? We extracted them into separate folders and set to looking. Inside each is an identical PhoneGap-powered www folder. PhoneGap is an HTML5-based framework for building mobile apps, which will suggest an answer for question two. Both apps sport nearly identical index.html files: The _CodeSignature files for each app seem to indicate that many of the files have identical values. Running md5 on background images demonstrates the remarkable similarity: But how? Under normal circumstances, doing a straight-up clone of an iOS app would be relatively difficult. The fact that these apps were built with PhoneGap, however, provides a theory about how this might have been done. The PhoneGap development environment may make apps especially vulnerable to cloning, because the web assets making up the UI are stored in the clear inside the app. Developers using this framework (and similar HTML5-based tools) may want to keep an eye out for clones. In any case, it's clear that we have a rogue developer in the store, and the ball is now in Apple's court.
PhoneGap v1.3 brings better cross-platform app coding to Windows Phone
Nitobi's PhoneGap project helps app developers to code for multiple mobile OSs simultaneously, thanks to the open standard wonders of HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. It's supported Windows Phone since the beginning, but v1.3 builds on that friendliness by opening up the API's full feature set and hence every limb and organ of a Mango handset, from the compass right through to storage and notifications. New plug-ins yield extra goodies, like Live Tile updates, BingMaps Search and social networking integration. Plus, in the interests of fairness, the full list of improvements (at the source link) contains some nuggets for Android, iOS and BlackBerry coders too.
appMobi XDK delivers free cross-platform dev environment to Chrome Web Store
The Chrome Web Store welcomed a new arrival today, and it goes by the name of appMobi XDK. While the addition is targeted squarely at developers, it's entirely free and packs quite a doozy -- cross-platform HTML5 software development from within the web browser. As you might expect, the tool is perfect for making applications to run within Google Chrome, but get this... it's also capable of creating native apps for submission to Apple's App Store and the Android Market. Like any competent development environment, it features a full set of debugging tools, along with the ability to test your apps via on-screen emulation and directly from your target device. Hardware integration is accomplished with JavaScript hardware abstraction, which enables access to the camera, GPS, accelerometer and the like. Further, the platform boasts full compatibility with PhoneGap, which means you can easily transition if you've got a project in the works. If you're already hooked, be sure to check out the PR after the break, which describes such goodies as in-app purchasing and secure user authentication, which are made possible with appMobi's cloud services.
PhoneGap 1.0 lets devs write apps for seven platforms (video)
Until now, mobile app developers have followed a pretty predictable MO: develop for iOS first, Android second, and everyone else after that. Since last year, many of you code monkeys out there have been tapping into Nitobi's PhoneGap, a project that makes it easier to churn out apps for almost every OS, all at once. It's been picking up steam, with about 40,000 downloads per month, 600,000 in total, and a steady stream of donations. That all culminated this weekend with the release of PhoneGap 1.0, which lets devs use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to write and deploy apps for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, webOS, Bada, and Symbian. That's a long list indeed, but we see one glaring omission: Windows Phone 7. Hit the source link to download it for free and check out the promo video below for an oh-so quick overview. Update: Oops! Looks like WP7 is included! Our apologies, and feel free to celebrate accordingly.
PhoneGap framework fine for App Store development, sez Apple
Now, we've all been concerned about recent updates to the iPhone dev agreement -- you haven't been sleeping and your parents are, quite frankly, worried for your sanity. And it's a heady subject: "what is the fate of PhoneGap in the wake of the iPhone OS 4 beta SDK?" Well, worry no more, little one -- it seems that Jesse Macfadyen, a contributor to the project, pinged Apple to make sure that users of the mobile development platform wouldn't find their apps rejected simply for using the tool. As you remember, the agreement states: "Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine" (and of course HTML and CSS are cool), so PhoneGap -- which indeed sticks to HTML, CSS and Javascript -- is totally safe. Now developers can get back to having their apps rejected for any number of other silly reasons. [Thanks, Bea]
