PhoneGAP

Is an Adobe owns open source mobile development platform. The version 2.0 is released to produce web based applications.

Features:

    -     applications can be built for iOS, Android, BlackBerry and other systems using tools like HTML5 and Java

    -       Implements a new command line interface for building iOS applications.

Command line tooling is a way of making common tasks like debugging more simple by using the same language across the different operating systems. Additionally, version 2.0 adds support for Windows Phone 7, although this is a mixed bag considering Microsoft is only a few months out from the the Windows 8 launch. There's also added documentation on getting started and the PhoneGap Plugin API

PhoneGap takes the more familiar Web tools and uses them to build apps for multiple native environments, but other platforms take a similar approach. Open Plug is a free cross platform development kit also, but it does require a bit more knowledge of programming. At the other end of the spectrum there is App-Builder that can build apps right from an iOS or Android powered smartphone.

This system makes the most use of HTML5, one of the most widely known markup languages. PhoneGap can build native apps for other systems like Nokia's Symbian and web OS system from HP.

PhoneGap Seeks to Bridge the Gap Between Mobile App Platforms:

Building apps across different mobile platforms is hard and time-consuming for programmers because each platform has a complex, proprietary language. This, especially in a tough economy, often forces small teams to make a choice about which platform they’ll build for, eventually leading to fewer choices for phone consumers and fewer places developers can offer their apps. But the larger pool of developers out there, who know how to write for standard languages like JavaScript, CSS, and HTML (Ajax), now stand ready to blow this system wide open. They’d do it with the help of PhoneGap, an open-source app platform for which software company Nitobi took home top prize this week at the Web 2.0 conference’s Launchpad competition. PhoneGap uses the standard web languages to allow programmers to write one code that can work on many different phones. By expanding the reach of apps to more phones, PhoneGap could give developers both a bigger audience and faster outlet on which to test the commercial viability of those apps.

The huge need for a multiple-platform service is only heightened by the recent growth in app store solutions. Just this week, BlackBerry launched its own app store, and Nokia, Palm, and Microsoft are prepping theirs for this year. PhoneGap currently allows developers to work on the iPhone, BlackBerry and Android OS, and will soon work with the others’ systems as well.