HTML5 development studio appMobi is releasing a new tool today for developers to create, emulate and test PhoneGap projects. The appMobi PhoneGap Mobile App XDK is an integrated developer environment (IDE) that offers a full suite of developer tools for creating HTML5 and PhoneGap applications. The new appMobi XDK is the first of its kind for PhoneGap development and is an intuitive tool for developers working on PhoneGap projects.
PhoneGap is not actually called PhoneGap anymore. It will soon be going by the name Apache CallBack as part of its entrance into the Apache Software Foundation and Nitobi acquisition by Adobe. AppMobi is known for pushing the bounds of HTML5 development and this new framework fits well within its vision for free tools to help developers create apps for the mobile Web. With PhoneGap integration, those apps can now easily be made native.
The appMobi PhoneGap XDK is a full development environment that also works with other programming editors such as DreamWeave 5.5 or NotePad++. Hence, developers do not really need to learn a whole new editor to be able to use the framework The goal is to reduce the coding and debugging cycles for developers. The PhoneGap XDK allows for testing and emulating of PhoneGap code to see how it will function on either iOS or Android devices with features.
Some may think that appMobi’s PhoneGap XDK is a curious move for the company. After all, appMobi is one of the biggest proponents of going away from native frameworks and using HTML5 to build mobile Web apps. The answer is a simple business proposition – if you are building in PhoneGap, you are building in the mobile Web. PhoneGap just wraps it in a native format. Though appMobi’s frameworks are free, it offers paid cloud services (in the same way as Kinvey, Parse, StackMob and Urban Airship, to a varying degrees) that can offer in-app purchases, push notifications, analytics and live updating. Business 101: get them in the door and they are more likely to buy a product.
It is not that appMobi has created a honey pot to lure developers into using their cloud services. There really is a need in the ecosystem for a dedicated PhoneGap IDE that works outside of the native frameworks. In a way, appMobi wants to turn PhoneGap around and instead of publishing PhoneGap projects to native frameworks, actually publish them to the mobile Web. It is a clever strategy as appMobi works on evangelizing HTML5 and the company’s tools that developer for it.
Check out the video below that reviews the PhoneGap Mobile App XDK from appMobi and let us know in the comments if this is the type of tool that would work in your development environment.
