It is always good to know the cons and pros of tools we are using before starting a new project with them in order not to be disappointed later on.

A frequently-updated chart by Markus Falk does this for the mobile frameworks as there is a detailed comparison of their capabilities.

The chart displays the rendering engines supported, target platform, hardware, development languages, UI features and license for each framework.

Also, if you already have strict requirements for the project, a wizard helps filtering the frameworks and fastens the process of choosing the right one.

Rhodes is an open source framework for building native applications for all major smartphone operating systems: iPhone, Windows Mobile, RIM, Symbian and Android using Ruby as the development language.

It has access to native device capabilities such as GPS geolocation, PIM contact reading/writing and camera image capture.

Development process can be called as "easier" with Rhodes as most of your UI customization can be done in HTML templates.

There are integrated styling libraries for matching the look and feel of native applications (ex: for iPhone, it is based on iUI and jQTouch can be used as well).

MoSync is an open source SDK, with many tightly integrated components, for creating cross-platform mobile applications.

It includes compilers, runtimes, libraries, a device profile database, an emulator and more.

The kit is has an Eclipse-based IDE for C/C++ application development and comes with a detailed documentation.

Some of the built-in libraries are: graphics, audio, multimedia and TCP/HTTP/Bluetooth/SMS which enables you to interact with almost every features of mobile platforms including:

• Android Cupcake 1.5
• Java ME MIDP 2 (J2ME)
• Moblin 2.x
• Pocket PC 2003
• Smartphone 2003
• Symbian S60 2nd, 3rd, and 5th ed
• Windows Mobile 5.0-6.5

and others like iPhone, Blackberry, MeeGo are to be included.

To sum up, the kit is great for anyone who wants to develop for multiple mobile platforms with the same tools and logic.