What is Bungee Connect?

Bungee Connect is an Eclipse-based application development framework targeted at Enterprise Java programmers. It enables them to build or repurpose applications that run natively on the desktop, in the browser and on multiple mobile platforms from a single Java code base. Bungee Connect preserves and utilizes native behaviors and functionality specific to the target platform without losing visual or interactive fidelity as is the case with typical cross-platform technologies. At present, Bungee targets the desktop and four browsers as well as iOS. Android is under development with W8, Blackberry OS and Facebook to follow. When the Android target is complete, an application built with Bungee Connect for Android will also run natively on iOS iPhone or other targeted platforms. Adding a target platform takes just a few months initially depending on complexity.

Existing cross-platform development tool technologies ‘normalize’ (AKA least common denominator) platform-specific access. Cross-platform APIs result in applications that have greatly diminished user experience and product differentiation, and fundamentally lack the ability to address different form factors.

Bungee Connect enables Java developers to customize and adapt to each target platform, thus utilizing the full range of native look, feel and functionality. Bungee also supports the ability to tailor interaction for each specific form factor, even as completely different interactive mechanisms are required or preferred. Bungee’s unique "Connection" technology offers developers the ability to maintain a single set of application-specific logic where all multiple platform-specific assemblies are connected and configured through a simple design process.

For each target platform and form factor supported by Bungee Connect, Java developers can produce apps from the same code base, eliminating the need to rewrite or extensively modify applications in order to run on different mobile platforms.

Bungee will enter early preview in November, 2012 supporting at that time Desktop with SWT(Windows, Mac, Linux), Web with Google GWT (IE, Chrome, Firefox, Safari) and iOS (iPhone, iPad). Shortly thereafter, Android will be added. In Q1 of 2013 the company will be adding Blackberry OS, W8, and Facebook.