Rhomobile Announces Rhodes 2.0

SAN FRANCISCO, May 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Web 2.0 Expo -- Rhomobile today announced Rhodes 2.0, the newest version of the industry's most powerful smartphone app 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. Rhodes 2.0, available for free, provides developers with powerful enhancements including faster sync, and optimized native styling for all smartphones and new capabilities including advanced multimedia support and a metadata framework that supports applications with changing underlying schema. Rhomobile will be demonstrating Rhodes 2.0 today and this week during the Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco at their booth located in the Long Tail Pavilion.

New support for bi-directional audio and video streaming allows developers to easily add live audio and video capture and playback capabilities to their smartphone apps. For example, a developer can add the ability to let a user show their system problem using video or images within an IT helpdesk mobile app. Requestec created an app with Rhodes that allows users to audio and video conference right from their iPhone, Windows Mobile or Android smartphone.

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.

"Mobile CRM solutions require sync data while also remaining flexible to changing mobile workforce needs," said Chris Hall, CEO of Logic Appeal. "We chose Rhodes to create our app, Rhologic Mobile for SugarCRM, as Rhodes supports all major smartphones and is the only framework to offer synchronization between back-end applications and end-user devices."

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 is faster, more powerful and now, through the MIT license, is completely free," said Adam Blum, CEO of Rhomobile. "With exclusives including an Object Relational Manager and the only Model View Controller framework for smartphone app development, Rhodes allows developers to rapidly create cross-platform  mobile apps with the logic and features required by the enterprise mobile workforce."

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 Features:

• NEW: Metadata framework
• NEW: Bi-directional audio and video streaming in HD
• 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 as 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. The Rhodes 2.0 public beta is available today at http://Rhomobile.com/beta. The Rhodes 2.0 final will be available later this month. Tutorials and other documentation can be viewed at http://Rhomobile.com/docs.

About Rhomobile

Rhomobile Inc. offers the world's leading only open source framework for enterprise mobility. Founded in 2008, the company's award winning software has thousands of active developers and is ideal for independent software vendors, system integrators and enterprises of all sizes. Rhomobile offers a comprehensive, modern, highly adaptable, and low cost solution for today's smartphone app developer. Rhomobile, headquartered in Cupertino, CA, is a privately held company with backing from vSpring Capital. For more information, please visit www.Rhomobile.com.

Rhomobile, Rhodes and RhoSync are registered trademarks of Rhomobile, Inc. All other registered or unregistered trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Rhomobile