Native applications on mobile devices deliver a great experience to users. Only native applications can deliver excellent fidelity and performance, and support a disconnected state. But if you don’t know the devices mobile technology development can be difficult.
Mobile web sites deliver a poor experience to users. Mobile web sites are simply web pages; they cannot access the device itself and necessitate an always-connected device. But because it’s just HTML, developers have an easier time supporting multiple devices.
A Real Option
Mixing native with web is PhoneGap – it executes local HTML and JavaScript in an embedded browser wrapper app. PhoneGap apps are not as awesome as native apps, but they are surely the next best thing – and are a viable option. These types of apps don’t require developers to know much about a device – and can be deployed across the various mobile platforms with little investment. They also have access to the device itself (including sensors, battery and more); they support offline scenarios, too.
PhoneGap is free. It supports iOS, Android™, Windows® Phone 7, webOS, Symbian™, and BlackBerry®. It’s a real opportunity for mobile developers to write an app that requires minimal investment to deploy cross-platform.
Note: PhoneGap is the old name, now it is Cordova. PhoneGap is such a well known brand, I can’t imagine the developer community will ever stop calling it PhoneGap.
Windows Phone 7? Where is PhoneGap Windows Phone 8 support?
We have anxiously been waiting for PhoneGap to support Windows Phone 8 since Windows Phone 8 was unveiled a month and a half ago. And, on January 7th, the PhoneGap Blog announced that Apache Cordova 2.3.0 now has full support for Windows Phone 8! Awesome.
Get PhoneGap here: http://aka.ms/PhoneGap
I believe PhoneGap is one of the cooler technologies. Just like developers can select HTML 5 to build a Windows 8 app, those same developers can select HTML 5 to build a Windows Phone 8 app, too. It’s beautiful. Not just because of the cross-platform, but because it targets where developers are.
You can Learn more on Channel 9
Best of luck!