Rhomobile Announces Rhodes 2.0

Rhomobile has announced Rhodes 2.0, the newest version of the industry's most powerful smartphone app development framework. Rhodes 2.0 allows developers to rapidly build native apps for all major smartphones including iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian as well as the iPad. Now available for free under the MIT license, Rhodes 2.0 provides developers with new capabilities including native mapping across all devices and a metadata framework that supports applications with changing underlying schema as well as powerful enhancements including faster sync and optimized native styling for all smartphones.

Rhodes native mapping extends the benefits of the iPhone's powerful native mapping capabilities (annotated pushpins that link to external URLs and the ability to zoom arbitrarily) to other devices such as Android and BlackBerry smartphones that otherwise wouldn't have such capabilities. The native map view is easy to implement and can be displayed with one call to the Rhodes MapView object.

Rhodes 2.0 also provides a "metadata framework." The metadata framework allows mobile apps to communicate with backend enterprise systems that have changing schemas. Developers can change a field or attribute in the back-end enterprise application and the change is reflected immediately on the application running on the device. For example, developers can write a CRM app with Rhodes that handles the backend CRM app adding a field such as "mobile phone number" to the definition of a CRM contact. Resyncing from the app would show customer information with the new field.


"Rhodes 2.0's native mapping capabilities allow us to easily create powerful location-based apps with contextual user interfaces," said Jonathan Tarud, Founder and CEO of Koombea. "And since Rhodes is a cross-platform framework, it allows us to create apps for all leading smartphones with one set of code, providing quick development and easy application maintenance."

Rhodes was built from the ground up to enable enterprise mobility efforts and is the only smartphone development framework to include essential capabilities such as sync data required by today's mobile workforce. Rhodes integration with RhoSync makes it possible for developers to add true sync to their mobile app, making data accessible to users even when they are offline and disconnected. With Rhodes 2.0's in memory data caching, sync is much faster and more robust.

"Rhodes 2.0 was built from the ground up to offer the powerful capabilities, including sync data and support for changing underlying schema, required by enterprise mobile applications," said Adam Blum, CEO of Rhomobile. "By offering Rhodes 2.0 at no cost under the MIT licenses we are providing developers with a no-risk entry to create powerful, enterprise-class native smartphone apps whether they are developing for a single smartphone OS or for all simultaneously."

The Rhodes smartphone app framework reduces development time by up to five times for a single OS as developers can leverage their web development skills and code in HTML and Ruby instead of in Objective-C or other complex native device OS language.


Rhodes 2.0 Features:
-- NEW: Metadata framework
-- NEW: Native mapping across all devices
-- NEW: Optimized native styling for all smartphones
-- EXCLUSIVE: Model View Controller for mobile app development
-- EXCLUSIVE: Object Relational Manager (ORM)
-- EXCLUSIVE: Support for all devices
-- EXCLUSIVE: Support for Push Synchronized Data on all platforms
-- Built from the ground up to leverage smartphones in the enterprise
-- Allows developers to write app interface in Ruby and HTML and
simultaneously build native apps (not web apps) for all smartphones
-- Supports iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android and
webOS
-- Allows users to work with synced local data for rapid access and ease
of operation when disconnected or offline
-- App provisioning via RhoHub, the only hosted Development as a Service
for Mobile
-- Makes developers five times more productive for even a single
smartphone OS
-- Built-in tools for test-driven development
-- Interactive debugger (Android/iPhone emulators)
-- Full access to device capabilities: GPS, audio and video, PIM
contacts, native mapping, camera

Availability:
The Rhodes framework is free under the MIT License. Rhodes 2.0 is available at http://rhomobile.com/products/rhodes/. Tutorials and other documentation can be viewed at http://rhomobile.com/docs.

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