Nitobi released PhoneGap 1.0, which it said “allows developers to use foundation web technology (HTML, CSS and JavaScript) to create native mobile applications.” It said that the release focuses on providing access to native device APIs, which the company said is “new ground” for the web. The company said the open-source code that underpins PhoneGap is downloaded approximately 40,000 times per month, with more than 600,000 downloads made in total, and that “thousands of apps built using PhoneGap are available in mobile app stores and directories.”

PhoneGap 1.0 includes a number of other feature enhancements, with Brian LeRoux, senior software engineer at Nitobi, noting that “most of these new enhancements come from our community.”  These include overall API stability and pluggable architecture; W3C DAP API compatibility; contacts API; and remove debugging tools. The release also includes a new unifying bridge interface that makes adding platforms and platform extensions easy, and the plugin development process has also been simplified.

Contributors to PhoneGap alongside Nitobi and “hundreds of individual developers” is a team of software engineers at IBM, “whose commitment and contributions to PhoneGap development has been a major benefit to the community.” Nitobi said that other companies to adopt PhoneGap include Alcatel-Lucent, Sabre, Cisco, Logitech and Time Warner.