Aptana and Nokia have unveiled new mobile device development tools for creating interactive web pages. The latest versions of the Nokia WRT (Web Runtime) and the Nokia WRT Plugin for Aptana Studio lets web developers create, package and, deploy a range of mobile applications that integrate with the underlying systems and software on a mobile device. These "widget" applications install at the click of a button, can utilize the device's contact list and calendar data, determine the device's location, find landmarks within an area, send and get SMS messages, receive information from a device sensor, such as an accelerometer and more on Nokia S60 5th edition devices including the forthcoming Nokia N97. This version (version 2 Beta) of the Nokia WRT Plugin for Aptana Studio is currently available to Forum Nokia PRO, Launchpad and Champions members. Aptana Studio and the current version of the Nokia WRT Plugin for Aptana Studio may be downloaded and used for free www.aptana.com.
Using Nokia WRT, developers use JavaScript to incorporate these rich capabilities into their mobile applications. In addition, the latest version of the Nokia WRT lets users personalize their devices by adding "mini-apps" to the home screens of their devices. For example, a Nokia WRT application tracking stock positions through Bloomberg, keeping up to date on Facebook chatter among friends, or the latest Twitter feeds, can display that data in real-time on the device home screen. Thus the device owner can keep current in real-time with the information they want without having to open separate applications.
Developers using Aptana Studio and the Nokia WRT Plugin for it can build, debug, preview, test, package and deploy applications faster through the powerful Eclipse-based Web development tooling and related application cloud hosting services for which Aptana has become known.
"Extending Aptana's suite of Web development tools to meet the needs of developers using Nokia WRT has delivered significant value and ease to the Nokia developer community," said Nokia's Craig Cumberland. "Aptana Studio has become very popular in the web development and Eclipse communities. With a current rate of more than 200,000 downloads a month, Aptana is a driving force in making Web developers world-wide aware of the kinds of mobile applications they can create using Nokia WRT."
Developers using Aptana Studio can also provide data services for their mobile web applications using Aptana Cloud Connect which provides instant, scalable hosting for Java, PHP, Ruby on Rails, and Jaxer applications. Applications deployed via Aptana Cloud Connect can easily serve data to mobile applications and scale up or down as a mobile application's utilization changes. Aptana Cloud is integrated into the workflows of Aptana Studio to facilitate development, testing, deploying, managing and monitoring applications. Aptana Studio supports any combination of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Ajax, PHP, Ruby on Rails, and Python development. It can run standalone or be plugged into Eclipse, the most widely used development tool for Java.
