News

Telerik Platform Gets Cloud Mobile Development Updates

• By David Ramel
• January 15, 2015

The Telerik Platform has been updated with more cloud mobile development features after a year on the market, new owner Progress Software Corp. announced yesterday.

The platform facilitates JavaScript-based (Cordova/PhoneGap) cross-platform development for Android, iOS and Windows Phone projects, along with native and Web-based solutions. It features Backend-as-a-Service capabilities, analytics services, mobile testing and more. Launched last January, the platform yesterday received its first updates since the Progress acquisition was completed last month.

Those updates are highlighted by a new cloud device testing service, a Screen Builder that provides generated code, quick-start templates, enhanced push notifications and improvements to the Telerik NativeScript project for building native apps with JavaScript and CSS.

"Cloud testing solutions are becoming commonplace in performance and load testing, including performance monitoring," the company quoted research firm Gartner Inc. as saying. "In addition, the demands created by bring your own device (BYOD) programs and development pressure around device-centered computing has created a strong drive to make use of device clouds."

The Telerik Device Cloud -- currently in beta -- lets developers test their apps on more than 300 actual physical devices running multiple Android and iOS versions. While in beta, it can only test apps built with the Telerik AppBuilder tool as part of a subscription plan. When launched into production, developers will pay by the minute for the service.

Also in beta is the Screen Builder that builds upon PhoneGap app scaffolding and can generate pre-wired and pre-built screens that provide up to 80 percent of a mobile app's code.

The new quick-start templates and workflows also give developers a heads-up on mobile development, letting developers create some apps in 15 minutes, the company claimed.

Also, taking "interactive push notifications to the next level" is the Telerik Cordova Push plug-in, featuring back-end services, push troubleshooting logs and a simpler push API.

"Finally and most notably, the Telerik open source project, NativeScript, (still in private beta) is gaining strong momentum," the company said. "In its drive to create the best native development framework, the NativeScript offering now includes robust support for CSS styling of native app UIs, an improved cross-platform JavaScript framework, support for third-party native libraries and the ability to build native apps using command-line interface."