Provider of open source framework for enterprise mobility Rhomobile has released the newest version of its cross-platform smartphone app development framework, Rhodes 2.0.

With Rhodes 2.0, developers can build native apps for all major smartphones including iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian (News - Alert), and also iPad. Company officials said that the new version provides developers with enhancements such as faster sync, and optimized native styling for all smartphones.

In addition, Rhodes 2.0 comes with new capabilities including advanced multimedia support and a metadata framework that supports applications with changing underlying schema. Thanks to the new support for bi-directional audio and video streaming, developers can add live audio and video capture and playback capabilities to their smartphone apps.

Rhodes2.0 also provides a “metadata framework” that allows mobile apps to communicate with backend enterprise systems that have changing schemas. Company officials said that developers can change a field or attribute in the back-end enterprise application and the change is reflected immediately on the application running on the device.

“Rhodes 2.0 is faster, more powerful and now, through the MIT license, is completely free,” said Adam Blum (News - Alert), CEO at Rhomobile, adding that with exclusives such as Object Relational Manager and Model View Controller framework for smartphone app development, Rhodes allows developers to create cross-platform mobile apps with the logic and features required by the enterprise mobile workforce.

Rhodeswas built from the ground up to enable enterprise mobility efforts. Company officials said that Rhodes integration with RhoSync makes it possible for developers to add true sync to their mobile app, making data accessible to users even when they are offline and disconnected.

“We chose Rhodes to create our app, Rhologic Mobile for SugarCRM (News - Alert), as Rhodes supports all major smartphones and is the only framework to offer synchronization between back-end applications and end-user devices,” said Chris Hall, CEO at Logic Appeal.

The Rhodes 2.0 public beta is currently available, while the Rhodes 2.0 final is expected to be available later this month.