Mobile Development - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Ruby creator sets sights on mobile

  The open source Ruby language, founded by developer Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto and released in 1995, has become a staple among programming languages.

• WebOS developers mourn HP's move but aren't surprised

  HP's decision to dump its WebOS mobile devices leaves diehard developers who built for it in limbo, said a former HP and Palm software development official who nonetheless lauded the technology and expressed hope that WebOS could be revived somehow.

• Google upgrades Android platform

  Google has unveiled an incremental release of the Android platform featuring optimizations for a wider range of tablets and a compatibility enhancement for fixed-size applications.

• Microsoft pairs Azure cloud with mobile devices

  Microsoft is positioning its Windows Azure cloud service as a platform to provide back-end services for mobile devices, including Apple's iOS and Google's Android.

• Microsoft looks to lure iPhone app developers to Windows Phone

  While Apple has vaunted to a leadership position in mobile computing with its iPhone smartphone, Microsoft is looking to chip away at Apple's dominance, releasing on Friday an API tool intended to help developers migrate iPhone applications to Windows Phone.

• Novell's Moonlight shines on Google Android

  Novell is porting Moonlight, an open source version of Microsoft's Silverlight rich Internet application plug-in software, to Google's Android mobile platform, a Novell official acknowledged on Tuesday afternoon.

• Mobile, cloud are changing application development

  Mobile and cloud computing are beginning to change the way that developers work at enterprise-level and smaller businesses, according to a report released this week by Forrester Research.

• Selenium test suite to add mobile apps

  Selenium 2.0, an upgrade to the popular open source Web application testing toolset, is anticipated for release this summer, featuring accommodations for mobile platforms and architectural improvements, its creator said on Tuesday.

• Google adds new access, analysis to Web performance tool

  Google is upgrading on Thursday its tool for analyzing Web page performance, making it available directly via the Web and offering smartphone page analysis.

• Microsoft: Windows Phone 7 a hit with developers

  Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform has caught on with developers in the year since the platform's development tools were first shown, a Microsoft executive stressed Thursday in a blog entry featuring a variety of numbers related to Microsoft's entrant in the highly competitive smartphone market.

• Enterprise software getting more mobile

  Mobile application development, including the need to extend enterprise applications to mobile devices, is growing in prominence, according to research reported by Evans Data on Monday. Evans expects mobile and tablet applications to become a huge part of the development landscape.

• Motorola Mobility addresses Android fragmentation worries

  Motorola Mobility, which has made the Google Android platform the centerpiece of its mobile technology strategy, has heard developer and customer concerns about Android fragmentation and systems not all behaving the same. But the company sees variation as beneficial rather than a hindrance, a Motorola Mobility official said on Tuesday.

• Android, iOS attracted open source developers in 2010

  If Black Duck Software's knowledge base of open source software projects serves as a barometer, then Google's Android software platform led the way in open source software development projects for mobile devices last year, followed by Apple's iOS platform.

• Google releases full Android 3.0 SDK

  Google has made available the full SDK for the Android 3.0 mobile platform, featuring a UI redesigned for tablets and more connectivity options.