A lot of work has gone into some great improvements in Breeze.

Now not only do you get support for BlackBerry, Nokia and hundreds of feature phones – but you also get iPhone and Android builds with your Breeze project now.

What does this mean?  Using Breeze you’ll create your rich mobile app with our eclipse plug-in, or standalone tool, and you’ll find code for your iPhone and Android versions of the applications in our Developer Portal for your project once you’ve built it. You can simply download these and run them in the iPhone or Android Development kits and your project is ready to build.

Breeze iPhone App

You can access many features of these smartphones, and most of the native user interface elements such as the tab bar, menu buttons, to make your app look great.

Of course you can submit your Breeze app to Apple for inclusion into the App Store and do the same for Android Market.

Rather than learning  3 or more languages, you can build your apps once in HTML/JavaScript/CSS and know you are supporting the major phones on the market without the typical headaches and cost of supporting so many platforms.

Give it a try for yourself, or ask us how we can help you get started.

We are looking forward to presenting at DemoCamp Toronto #21 Tuesday July 28th, 2009.  Looks like there are some great companies presenting – we’ll be creating a mobile app in 5 minutes using Breeze for our demo.  If you can’t make this one we’ll try and post a “5 Minute App” demo here soon.

One of the most common questions we get is this:

“What kind of mobile apps can I create with Cascada Mobile Breeze”

Take a look at the screencast below.  This shows off just a few of the apps that have been built with our product.
Note, there is no sound in this video.

Can you build a few web pages like this in HTML/JavaScript/CSS?

Well, you can now put those skills to use to build rich installed mobile apps – write it once, we’ll make sure it runs everywhere.  Or let us do it for you.

What?  Not everyone can make a living with iPhone apps?

No question there has been a rush to the iPhone app store, especially given the media hype and the impressive numbers we’ve all seen quoted. So given the iPhone app love fest, we read with interest an article at FierceDeveloper that went so far as to say “dump your iPhone strategy.”

One of the interesting sections was some of the numbers quoted by the author and industry expert Konny Zsigo around the cost to enter the mobile space on all the ‘other’ devices.  A game for example on the major carriers was quoted at $50,000 to build and $100,000 to port.  Add in BlackBerry, QA and the certification process and you are up to $250,000.

Our product, Cascada Mobile Breeze, addresses this exact issue – we significantly bring down that cost to one single development effort with one language (HTML/JavaScript/CSS), for all devices.  (Oh, and keep an eye out for some upcoming news on our device support…)

That $250,000 development cost assumes one has to create an app in each language, and then port it to the different phones and screen types.  The reality is that a highly optimized game can be expensive and may require that level of effort, but not everything is that complex.  For example, there are utilities, puzzles, content readers, social networking apps, news, weather, and sports apps that do well and can be created easily in Breeze.

We are seeing more and more movement toward this approach in the industry – use web technologies to build mobile apps – and there is a reason.  It is much more cost effective  in terms of the skill set and time required.  Plus with the app stores popping up everywhere, there is a better marketplace to sell these apps.  The market for mobile apps has expanded dramatically in the last 6 months with the BlackBerry App World and Nokia’s Ovi store in particular, and it is only going to get better.

So while not everyone will experience overnight success with their mobile apps – iPhone or not, with the development tools available and the increasing demand from business users and consumers for compelling apps, there is no time like the present to get into the mobile applications business – we’ve taken care of the hard part.

We’ve been helping companies get their mobile apps onto phones for over 4 years now.  The world has completely changed in that time.  We’ve gone from few people knowing you can even run an app on a phone – to commercials on television for them (”There’s An App For That….“)

What has been improved in that time?  Devices are a little faster, have a bit more memory and storage and have faster and cheaper internet connections.  Distribution is a little better with iTunes and app stores from RIM,  Nokia, and a wide variety of third parties.  Development, well – that is still an issue since there are now even more platforms to try and support – but regular readers will know we’ve got a solution to that with Breeze.

Now, the last step is a little easier too.  Application signing.  With Nokia’s latest news that their apps for their store (Ovi) must be signed, but don’t need to go through futher hoops of being ‘Java Verified’, this brings them in line with RIM and Apple making it just a little easier to get apps out the door.  Signing provides some certainty on the application and usually makes it easier for a user to install and use.  So developers still need to sign their apps for each platform, but not each device, which was costly and slow.

Thank you Apple, RIM and Nokia for making things a little easier – at least in this area.

It has always been interesting to note the stance that mobile operators have taken on data usage over their networks. Given issues in the past about customers getting high bills for unexpected data usage, they’ve taken some great steps forward to mitigate this risk. Some carriers offer ‘overage insurance’ others cap the total dollar amount if a user goes over.

Many mobile applications will let a user know how much data is being used, and some phones will report this as well, independent of any apps. All of this lays the groundwork for a more comfortable view of mobile data usage for the operator. Right now, with many billing plans – more usage equates to more revenue. Despite this being the case for some time now, there has always been a fear that too much usage would create customer revolt. It did to a certain extent, but we are moving past that and getting to a point where people understand their devices, and the costs associated with using them.

So… let the apps roll out.

Juniper Research points out in their latest mobile revenue prediction ($25B by 2014) that

“Data revenue growth is dependent upon operators embracing policies which enable open access – a policy which also involves facilitating app stores which compete with their on-portal offerings.”

… according to report author Dr Windsor Holden.

This is great for the operators, because they don’t have to do much other than keep up their network capacity – and keep their Mobile App policies ‘open’.

This is also great for developers, publishers and consumers who will all benefit from the industry maturing, providing good business models for the developers, and good user experiences for the users.

There was a very interesting read from Tim McElligott over at Billing World about going “one better” than the app store.  The article talks about the challenges mobile operators are having as they try and sort out their own app store strategy and implementation, and the players involved in the process.  We are definitely seeing a lot of interest in our offering – a full end-to-end platform that addresses this exact issue.

What do you need for the full eco-system?  While not an exhaustive list, the following are critical components:

1. An easy way for people to create rich apps
2. An easy way for those apps to run on as many phones as possible
3. An easy way for end users to get those apps on their phones, anywhere in the world
4. A way to track the download and installation of those apps in order to monetize them
5. A platform approach that can evolve and grow as the mobile market continues to become even more fragmented
6. A clear policy on the app approval process

Even if companies are “late to the game,” there is certainly room for more, if at least, the above points are addressed in full.

Knowing that sometimes software development requires an interactive approach, and often several updates – it is interesting to read over at IntoMobile that Microsoft is planning on charging developers each time they submit their apps for approval, after their 5th submission.

Yes – developers should make sure their app is well tested before releasing it, and yes, the Windows Marketplace  is probably geared a little more towards enterprise users, but developers could use up their first five submissions just getting the app approved in the first place.

Will this new policy ensure that the approval process doesn’t get bogged down – as has happened in other app stores, or will it deter some of the smaller shops from making the investment?  The $99 won’t keep everyone away, but probably some.

We’d like to announce a new mobile app for a hockey fan favourite – The Hockey News. Right in time for playoffs, you can keep up to date on the hockey season, scores, and news from wherever you are.

Working with Polar Mobile’s original version of the Hockey News mobile application for the BlackBerry and iPhone, Cascada Breeze has extended the app to run on Java-based feature phones – with one single set of source code for all devices.  The press release for the application can be found here.

To get in on the action, simply SMS ‘cmap get hockey’ to 32075 and download the application to your phone or navigate to thn.mobi on your mobile device.  Make sure you are on a good data plan since the app will download scores, news stories and images over the air.

Check out these screen shots of the app running on an LG, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia device.

[View with PicLens]

If you happen to download the app from a BlackBerry or an iPhone, you’ll get the version built by Polar Mobile. Download it from any of our supported phones to experience the Cascada Breeze-built version. This partnership is a great example of pushing an application out to as many touch points as possible by expanding the platforms that it will operate on – certainly a trend that is becoming more commonplace in mobile.

Here is a short video of the app running on a few devices (no sound):

If you have developed an application that runs on a computer or on a limited number of handheld devices Cascada would love to talk with you about how Cascada Breeze can expand your potential user base to include the billions of phones in the market today – from BlackBerry’s to Nokia, Motorola and more.  Contact us today to bring your application to as many phones as possible!

Much has now been written about mobile applications – and with app stores popping up all the time, developers, content owners and publishers have to digest the numbers.  Pinch Media did a nice piece on this – for the iPhone.

Without dissecting the report, there is certainly a truth out there, and this can be said of any industry – apps must be built efficiently in order to generate a return for the investment.  That means creating something that can be re-used as much as possible, and creating something that is easily maintained and updated.  It also means taking advantage of the best approaches and expertise.  We are certainly seeing more and more interest from people looking for a ‘better way’ to build mobile apps.

There are certainly companies with vast budgets for mobile apps, and these are often high end game developers, but there is an even larger number of developers who need to contain their costs and bring an app to market on as many phones as possible without over spending.   Our suggestion of course is Breeze, since it does this without having to learn complex languages.   It is great to see companies realize that mobile apps are within their reach, and budgets.

With over 4.1 billion mobile phones out there now, 6 in 10 people now have one.  Certainly this is a large market, but you must know how to reach it effectively.