Update on Apache Cordova (aka Callback, aka PhoneGap)

Back in March, myself and three other intrepid BlackBerry employees made the trek to Vancouver to work with the folks at Nitobi to bring BlackBerry PlayBook support to the PhoneGap project.  Much code was written, some food and beverage was consumed, and at the end of the three days, a large portion of the code was created to support PlayBook.  The code required a bit of cleanup, and some automated tests still needed to be put into place.  With a busy summer, this took a tad longer than expected, but Nitobi and the PhoneGap project as a whole also had a busy summer and fall.

As some will be aware, PhoneGap was contributed to the Apache foundation as the Callback incubator project.  Further, Nitobi was acquired by Adobe.  Yet the good folks at the company-previously-known-as-Nitobi have continued to push forward, and BlackBerry remains firmly committed to being involved in this important community.

With a newly minted and signed Apache CLA in hand, Gord Tanner (@gordtanner) and myself returned to Vancouver with a few goals in mind.  With the help of Michael Brooks (@mwbrooks), the support for PlayBook is now merged in to the main Callback repository and is ready for the next official release!  Perhaps as interesting was the prototype code Gord brought for a proposed architecture that would enable a common phonegap.js file for all platforms that Callback supports.  This work was well received, and it was pulled into an official Callback repo where this exploratory work will be pushed forward.  We encourage everyone to check out the work in GitHub, and even see how you can also get involved.