Adobe announced the end of development of PhoneGap and PhoneGap Build, projects focused on the development of mobile apps, plus the end of its investment in Apache Cordova, a set of APIs created so that application developers can access the native functions of a device.
This closes an important cycle, in favor of Progressive Web Applications (PWA), which were cited by Adobe as an alternative that today covers all the needs that these projects sought to cover.
Through an entry posted on the PhoneGap blog, Adobe communicated this decision noting among its reasons that the use of this service had decreased during the last time.
Another argument pointed out is allusive to PWAs, which enjoy the ability to provide the web with qualities typical of mobile environments, such as the issuance of push notifications, their execution in full screen without containers, their respective access icons for the home screen and even support for offline content. In short, they offer more easily what until some time ago, was new in the hands of PhoneGap.
As an alternative to this service that will disappear on October 1, Adobe continue to recommend the use of Apache Cordova, a fork of PhoneGap that now more than ever, before the withdrawal of Adobe’s investment for its development, will depend on your community to stay standing.
In addition to the PWA and the option to fully migrate to Apache Cordova, Adobe also recommended other third-party platforms such as Monaca & Onsen UI, Framework7, Ionic Capacitor and NativeScript; offering even migration guides for some of them.
This project dates back to 2008, when the web and the mobile market were very different from what we know today. At that time, it was new and powerful to think of a platform that would allow creating high-performance applications using more proprietary web resources, such as the same HTML language, instead of those programming languages that are a real mess for those who don’t feel close to specialized app development. Today, the exhaustion of this model is evident, at least under the vision of Adobe.
PhoneGap will officially cease its activities on 1 October 2020. After that date, all existing content that has been developed using PhoneGap will continue to be supported by Apache Cordova, a platform that will retain its category of open source software, maintained at the level of development by the community.
Despite this disconnect, PhoneGap teams and Adobe staff involved in Apache Cordova will continue to develop libraries and open source tools to contribute to the project.
The data saved in PhoneGap Build, the app packaging tool of this service (which is not open source and not integrated into the Apache Cordova functions), must be downloaded by September 30, 2020, because after its closure there will be no way to get any other backing.
