Ansca Mobile (http://www.anscamobile.com) has released Corona SDK, a new version of its Mac-based industry standard mobile development platform. With Corona SDK, developers can write code once and build apps and games for both iOS and Android at the touch of a button.
The new release includes new APIs [application programming interfaces] that support, among other functionality, OpenAL audio, Facebook integration and MapView. In addition, Ansca merged all features of its Corona: Game Edition product into the core CoronaSDK product, with the latter now boasting all features and serving as the single product SKU offered by the Company.
The new Corona SDK audio engine is built on the industry standard OpenAL, designed for low-latency, high performance mixing and supporting 32 audio channels. Corona SDK now integrates the latest version of the native Facebook library (which is currently iOS-only).
A new MapView feature lets developers integrate one or more Google Map views into apps, and supports various methods of two-way communication between the map contents and the surrounding application: address or landmark lookup, pin marking, and reverse geocoding (converting latitude/longitude into the closest street address), among others.
Textures are now supported for resolutions up to 2048×2048. This is hardware-dependent, and primarily for the iPad and iPhone 4. Most other devices are limited to 1024×1024.
Previously, the Corona SDK trial only lasted 30 days. With this release, users can now try it out for as long as they like, building apps to their own personal devices free of charge. Users will only have to pay for a subscription when they decide to build an app for the Apple App Store or the Android Market.
Other new features include Sprite API improvements, a new Analytics API, Samsung Galaxy Tab support and a large set of API tuneups and performance enhancements. For more info to go http://www.anscamobile.com/corona .