Fellow Adobe evangelist Christophe Coenraets recently posted a three part article on building a CRUD application using HTML and the Backbone.js framework. He has now followed it up with a post on building a mobile app using Backbone.js And PhoneGap.

PhoneGap 1.4 has just been released, and here's a list of all that has changed.

jQuery Mobile 1.0.1 has been released, full list of enhancements in this blog post.

The latest Inspire Magazine is out, and it includes an article by our own Ray Camden on Combining your web skills with PhoneGap to build mobile apps.

The Chicago Tribune is running a story on how to Track the primaries and the candidates this election season. The first app they picked? The Flex and AIR based PolitiFact app.

Title says it all, PhoneGap has won an InfoWorld's 2012 Technology Of The Year Award.

Fellow Adobe evangelist Harish Sivaramakrishnan has posted a Demo of Data visualization inspired by Google Zeitgeist 2011, and as he notes, "it's almost Flash like, but built in HTML, CSS and JavaScript".

The default jQuery Mobile page transitions are slide for pages and pop for dialogs. And on Android these can be sluggish and appear to flash on and off annoyingly. Turning off transitions is easy, well, once you know the code you need. The following (which is not overly clear in the docs) was given to me by fellow Adobian, and jQuery Mobile contributor, Kin Blas.

Simple, right? Well, there is one catch. The mobileinit event has to be bound before jQuery Mobile is loaded. In other words it needs to be after your code that loads jQuery, but before the code that loads jQuery Mobile. You can put it right inline, or in its own .js file, which you can include.

The Fireworks team has started a 5-part blog series on jQuery Mobile Theme Skinning using Fireworks CS5 and the CSS3 Mobile Pack extension.

Need legally-binding electronically signed documents on the go? Check out the free Adobe EchoSign app. Details here

jQuery lets you manually manipulate controls like lists. For example, you can do something like this to add an item to a list:

In jQuery Mobile, if you manually update lists like that, then when you are done you must force the list to refresh so that formatting and styles are applied. To do this, just use:

But, there is one gotcha you should be aware of. jQuery Mobile apps are usually comprised of pages, each defined with a <div data-role="page">, and often with multiple in the same .html file. jQuery (and thus jQuery Mobile) lets you manipulate any controls in your page, so you can append or change controls in a page not currently being displayed. But, the .listview('refresh') call? That will only work if the control is on the currently displayed page. If you try to .listview('refresh') a control on a page that is not displayed, you'll see this error:

So, if you do need to update controls on a not currently displayed page, remember to load that page before triggering the refresh.

jQuery is freaking amazing, you all know that already. jQuery Mobile? It's a great v1 effort (and it just won the Innovation of the Year award), but is not quite as complete as it needs to be. If you are playing with jQuery Mobile, you owe it to yourself to check out JTSage's jQuery Mobile plugins, DateBox (a date and time picker, it blows away the in development jQuery Mobile experimental datepicker), and SimpleDialog (a replacement for JavaScript alert() or dialog()). Both are must haves!

My BlackBerry PlayBook hung yesterday. It took some digging to find the magic "hard reset" button, so I'm posting it here for when I need it next. Simultaneously press the power button and the volume down button, and hold for 10 - 15 seconds. Tada!

A group of my fellow Adobe evangelists have created the Game of Flex for iPad, Android tablets, and (soon) Blackberry PlayBook. The game consists of questions to quiz you on Flex development. If you correctly answer the quiz, you'll get a chance to win a copy of Flash Builder 4.6 (one license per month). Game of Flex is not only a game, it's also a fantastic learning tool that showcases all the new features of Flex 4.6.

Now on Adobe TV:

• Getting started with PhoneGap
• PhoneGap: Developing for iOS
• PhoneGap: Developing for Android

Adobe is in the midst of a fundamental transformation. We are transforming from software in boxes to solutions in the cloud, and to a world of touch interfaces on devices, and social connections everywhere. This is a time of both innovation and change for Adobe and for the Adobe community. And this article on ADC explains Adobe's strategic transformation and the Flash Platform, and summarizes the recent announcements.

Remember those Touch Apps that Kevin Lynch showed off at MAX? Photoshop Touch, Proto, Ideas, Debut, Collage, and Kuler are all now available for Android! (Ideas has been available for iOS for a while, and all of the apps will be coming to iOS).

Mike Chambers has posted additional (and much needed) Clarifications on Flash Player for Mobile Browsers, the Flash Platform, and the Future of Flash.

Flash has always had an interestingly evolving job. It wasn't that long ago when if your web site needed a cool drop down menu you'd use Flash, until HTML and web browser improvements made that unnecessary. And it wasn't that long ago that developers who wanted pop-up calendars or controls in our web forms used Flash, until DHTML made that just as unnecessary. Then Flash powered the in-browser video revolution, and Flash remains the dominant web browser video player, but now there are alternatives there as well. Even transitions and visual effects, once exclusively the realm of Flash, now have alternatives.

You see, Flash's job has always been to pick up where the browser left off, with the understanding that the line between them was a grey and moving one. As HTML and web browsers have evolved and improved, Flash gets to back-off from specific use cases, handing them off to the web browser itself, and thereby freeing itself up to tackle the next challenge.

Or another way to look at it is this, Flash exists because browsers didn't do enough, and as they do more Flash willingly cedes responsibilities to the browser.

Where things get interesting is on devices. Unlike on desktops, where older browsers still reign supreme and where browser innovation has faced slower adoption, device browsers are actually really good and really current. The fact that there are fewer browsers and better browsers, ones that support HTML5 innovation and standards and specifications, in many ways makes Flash far less critical for an optimum web browsing experience. That coupled with the fact that Flash is excluded from the browser on many devices means that web developers already need to code for a non-Flash experience, and that then makes Flash even less compelling for in-browser uses on devices.

Which is why we announced today that we will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser on mobile devices. For in-browser experiences on devices, browsers can finally do what they really should do, and we have HTML5 to thank for that. So that's where we are doubling down, and we're hard at work on making HTML5 better (as we showed at MAX) as well as on tooling to support HTML5 development.

But just to be clear, this announcement pertains to the browser plug-in on mobile devices only.

The Flash browser plug-in on the desktop remains important and viable and even critical for many use cases, and we've publicly committed to adding value and features and functionality to better address just these use cases, primarily gaming and video. (And at the same time we're aggressively driving in-browser HTML5 enhancements, including web motion and interaction design, another area where Flash used to be the only game in town).

Similarly, Flash based apps on mobile devices remain highly compelling, and AIR thus remains a great way to use Flash to build apps for Android, iOS, and RIM PlayBook. And with the recently released support for native extensions, the scope of what is possible in Flash based app has grown incredibly.

So, yes, in-browser Flash on mobile devices is reaching the end of the line. Flash on desktops continues to deliver in ways the browser can't (yet). Flash is one way to build apps, and HTML5 (using PhoneGap) is another. You, as a developer, have options.

While the delivery mechanism changes as technology and platforms change, our commitment to providing the right tools and services does not. Our job has always been to empower developers and designers to create the most engaging and compelling experiences. That's one thing that does not change at all.

Lee Brimelow has shared his own thoughts on Flash to Focus on Apps for Mobile (and his thoughts are similar to my own, which I'll be sharing shortly).

Danny Winokur (who many of you met at MAX where he hosted the Day 2 keynote) has posted an explanation on the future focus of Flash.

eWeek summarized key Adobe MAX 2011 announcements, and slide 3 features Andre Charland and yours truly chatting about PhoneGap. Thanks, Darryl!

I mentioned Machinarium last week. CNET's Stephen Shankland has posted his thoughts on the app in a post entitled Flash-derived iPad game tops App Store charts. The CNET article is good. But, more interesting (and not at all surprising) are the comments - read them for yourself.

Machinarium is an award winning point-and-click Flash based adventure game. The game has just been ported to run on the iPad using Flash and AIR, and this could very well be the biggest AIR mobile app to date. The app is now for sale on the App Store and has just been designated iPad Game Of The Week (as seen in this picture). Check out the trailer and overview article.

I mentioned the Adobe + Sony AIR App contest previously. Tomorrow (Thursday, September 1st), fellow evangelists Ryan Stewart and Mark Doherty, along with Sony, are hosting two webinars about the Adobe AIR App Challenge. Click here for details and registration.