Funambol, the open source mobile cloud sync company, today announced the availability of the new Funambol Cloud API (CAPI). CAPI is said to make it simple for developers to create mobile cloud apps that leverage contacts, calendars and pictures across diverse devices and systems. It allows data and media to be mashed up for novel purposes, such as machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, for example, using contact data in a car or internet appliance, calendars with navigation systems, or pictures for a TV slideshow. Funambol is hosting a gallery of open source CAPI apps built by its global developer community to facilitate collaboration of new mobile cloud services.
“The mobile cloud makes it super easy for people to access their data and media, anytime, anywhere,” said Fabrizio Capobianco, Funambol CEO. “The Funambol Cloud API allows developers to quickly create new types of apps and services that mashup mobile and online data across a broad variety of devices.”
The Funambol mobile cloud server syncs data and media on billions of mobile phones and connected devices with social networks, email systems and PCs. Funambol CAPI makes it easy for developers to access synced data, such as contacts, calendars and pictures, using simple API calls from high-level languages, such as Java, AJAX and PHP. This allows rapid development of apps that mashup mobile and online data and media from diverse devices and systems, for a wide range of projects.
Some apps and services that have been built using CAPI include: Automatic sync of calendars (from Google, Outlook or mobile phones) to a wireless navigation device, enabling people to always access their calendar on a GPS device and for the device to tell people how to get somewhere without manually entering addresses; Syncing pictures, which could be from mobile phones, to any internet-connected device, such as an e-picture frame, e-book reader, TV, or home internet appliance such as a Chumby; Syncing contacts, which could be from Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail or mobile phones, with people’s Facebook profile pictures, to a car, to eliminate manual entry or dialing of phone numbers; Providing contacts and calendars, which could be from virtually any source, in iGoogle widgets
CAPI is designed to simplify the task of automatically accessing and sharing data such as contacts, calendars and photos from one system or device with another via the cloud. Funambol invites developers to use CAPI to create interesting apps and is hosting a gallery of open source CAPI apps built by Funambol community members, that can be modified for diverse purposes.