The most oft-received request we have had from our users is to provide support for Cordova plugins and monetization opportunities such as Google AdMob and in-app purchasing. Finally, here it is!
We now have full support of Cordova APIs and plugins on iOS, Android, and Windows 8. You can take advantage of the many plugins that developers have created for Cordova at plugins.cordova.io, github, and others, including Google Play Services for ads and in-app purchasing. We created a new UI to help you select the standard Cordova APIs you want, and to specify which other plugins you want added to your app package when built. The new UI also helps you save build settings for your project rather than entering them only at build time. We're still working on the ability to emulate the custom plugins, so stay tuned for that. Here are some related links:
Adding Third-Party Plugins to Your Intel® XDK Cordova App
Adding Google Play Services to your Cordova Application
Create some amazing content-rich apps. We now have more services API integration to connect your app to more backend services such as Kinvey, Dropbox, datafeeds for weather, location, and market data. Searching through iTunes, Google Places, Woot Rotten Tomatoes, and Spotify. Social media and authentication through Instagram, Foursquare, Klout, and Kinvey. And, of course monetization opportunities with appMobi’s Storeview and 1Touch, and with Google Play Services via plugins for ads and in-app purchasing. With most of these, you can enter your credentials and get the javascript code to drop into the editor, or automatically inject it into your app through the App Designer. For services that we don't have integrated, you can "bring your own API" through the API Explorer in the Services tab to get them integrated for your projects.
Of course, we've made a number of other bug-fixes and general UI improvements. You can see the entire list in the Release Notes.
One other thing. Now that we have implemented Cordova 3.x support for all platforms, we’re going to call most of the IntelXDK APIs deprecated. All but a handful of them offer similar functionality one gets through the Cordova APIs, so there is really no need for them any longer. We intend to migrate the ”legacy” API users to Cordova over the next several months.
Our goal with the Intel® XDK remains unchanged: make HTML5 and javascript development easier for developers to help them make great apps for all platforms. Hopefully now, you will find ways to make some money with your apps as well.
BTW, stay tuned to xdk.intel.com and this blog as we're not done with announcements this summer. We've been thinking about a new paradigm for app creation using spreadsheets, and perhaps even something for "Makers".
As always, feedback welcome!
Joe Wolf
For more such Android resources and tools from Intel, please visit the Intel® Developer Zone