PhoneGap 2017 Roadmap

Since 2017 has kicked off, we wanted to take a moment to share what we have planned for you! We think this year is especially exciting because PhoneGap will be taking major steps toward our mission while remaining true to our philosophy. Our focus has always been to help you create amazing mobile apps using web technology and we believe that being compatible with the web is the right way to do it. This is why we’re focusing 2017 on compiling your app for a device with Apache Cordova, deploying the same app onto the web as a Progressive Web App, and helping you choose the right app stack for your needs from the amazing collection of open source tools and frameworks available.

App Stacks

Don’t panic. We believe one of the greatest strengths of PhoneGap is that it works with the web. In our earlier years, the best hybrid mobile apps were built from scratch without an app framework. However, there are now some incredible options that allow you to create high quality mobile app experiences.

We plan to make it easy for you to get up and running with the app framework of your choice. You can expect sample apps that show off what’s possible, guides to get you up and running, and first-class support from our tooling. If you’re an app framework maintainer, please reach out to us to talk about how we can work together!

Apache Cordova

Once you’ve picked the right framework, it’s time to start building your app. Apache Cordova was originally PhoneGap and it’s still our foundation. Throughout the year, you can expect clearer boundaries between PhoneGap and Apache Cordova. While PhoneGap will focus on helping you build your app, Apache Cordova will allow you to access native functionality and compile the app for App Store distribution.

The PhoneGap team continues to be heavily committed to Apache Cordova. In Our Continued Commitment, we outline our intentions to keep the releases rolling, stay secure, and grow our contributor community.

Progressive Web Apps

The purpose of PhoneGap is to allow you to build hybrid mobile apps today with the intention of throwing those same apps onto the web tomorrow. It’s been a long game that we started in 2008, but we believe Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are the final sprint to our finish line.

This year, you can expect the PhoneGap team to create compatibility between Apache Cordova and Progressive Web Apps. This will allow you to create a PWA app, deploy it on the web, and also compile it for App Store distribution.

Tooling

As developers, our tools are our rock. Even in a world of compiler errors, JavaScript exceptions, and 404 requests, we can trust that our tools are stable. This is why PhoneGap will be placing a greater focus on stability and reliability, especially on Windows. In order to do this, we will be adding additional error reporting to our analytics. If you receive a prompt to help improve the quality of our tools, we’d appreciate selecting Yes.

Your best tools are the ones that you use. PhoneGap has no ego about being your top-level tool, which is why you can expect more compatibility between PhoneGap’s tools and the frameworks that you are using. This will allow you to preview your app on a mobile device quicker, deploy the app as a Progressive Web App, and ultimately allow PhoneGap to get out of your way.

Adobe I/O Developer Platform

The PhoneGap team has joined the Adobe I/O developer platform! We’ll be easing into our new home by exposing the PhoneGap Build API through adobe.io, but our eye is on offering additional cloud services that solve your common development pain-points. We’ll also allow you to easily integrate with other Adobe services, such as editing images, sending images to Photoshop or Illustrator, or accessing the Creative Drive.

We’re excited for the year ahead! Please follow along on our roadmap and we’ll see you at PhoneGap Day 🇳🇱!

Originally published at phonegap.com on March 13, 2017.