[PhoneGap] Choosing PhoneGap over the Competition

[bxgrant]

Why should I choose PhoneGap over say Rhomobile, Appcelerator,

I am researching how I want to create a suite of mobile apps that have
to work on iPhone, Android and Blackberry as a minimum. I have done
native iPhone, Android and Blackberry development going back several
years and I'm sick to death of it. I want to use an abstraction.

I have been all over the PhoneGap docs, samples and this message
group.

I would love someone to correct me on the following cons I see of
throwing in with PhoneGap over some of the competition and add some
pro's if I'm missing some big ones:

Cons
- Building and deploying still requires the native SDK and environment
for each mobile platform, requiring domain knowledge of how to build
and deploy for that phone and all the pain that goes with it

- Dramatic differences in supported functionality exist across the
devices and there doesn't seem to be a single place I can go to find
out exactly what's different and how to work around it (the worst
seems to be Blackberry's support since its browser is sub-standard)

- Each platform's support has grown up organically resulting in
different ways of doing standard things for each platform (such as
persistence or running offline) and does not appear to have a goal to
bring a consistent way of creating applications to all its supported
platforms, unlike many of its competitors, such as SproutCore, that
focus on simplify write once JS/HTML and run on all supported
platforms.

Pros
- Pure HTML/JS approach possible and embraces HTML5

- Some degree of support for Blackberry (often missing in competition)

- It's possible to get to the metal outside of the browser if
necessary to do something platform-specific

- It's free like beer

I'd love to get your feedback and more I'd really love to be proven
wrong about the cons. In my analysis, PhoneGap may be my only hope.

Best,

bxgrant

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[Jeremy Wadsack]

bxgrant - 

I don't think your assessment is off-base. It seems you've done some digging and analysis, so let me make some comments about the cons. That may or may not change the way things are.

Native SDK will be required for Apple with its new terms of service. (See phonegap discussion about this). Note that this applies to other platforms like Titanium as well. [Anyone want to build a cloud-based build service for phonegap or other mobile environments?]

Implementation of the API does vary by platform and is documented (at a high level) int he roadmap. (http://wiki.phonegap.com/Roadmap).

It's my understanding that Nitobi and the other PhoneGap developers intend the api (http://docs.phonegap.com/) to be the same across all platforms.

--
Jeremy Wadsack

[bxgrant]

Jeremy,

Thanks for the response. Excellent point about the Apple SDK change.
That change has effectively ruled out Appcelerator's Titanium unless I
hear something different. The announcement has also convinced me to
plan to move to HTML5 sooner than I otherwise would have considered
it. So, in my research I came across PhoneGap. However, PhoneGap
doesn't appear to do what I hoped...

Create a consistent application experience across iPhone, Android and
Blackberry by augmenting the browser's functionality with pass
through's to native API's where the browser's support of HTML5 falls
down.

In short, there's no panacea out there. There's going to be continued
pain for the forseeable future for software engineers who are tired of
dealing with the idiosyncratic mobile devices.

Ugh.

thanks,

-Bxgrant

On Apr 28, 11:06 am, Jeremy Wadsack <jeremy.wads...@gmail.com> wrote:
> bxgrant -
>
> I don't think your assessment is off-base. It seems you've done some digging
> and analysis, so let me make some comments about the cons. That may or may
> not change the way things are.
>
> Native SDK will be required for Apple with its new terms of service.
> (See phonegap

> discussion<http://blogs.nitobi.com/jesse/2009/11/20/phonegapp-store-approval/>about

> this). Note that this applies to other platforms like

> Titanium<http://developer.appcelerator.com/blog/2010/04/update-on-apple-sdk-4-...>as

> > phonegap+u...@googlegroups.com<phonegap%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>

> > For more options, visit this group at
> >http://groups.google.com/group/phonegap?hl=en?hl=en
>
> > For more info on PhoneGap or to download the code go towww.phonegap.com
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "phonegap" group.
> To post to this group, send email to phon...@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> phonegap+u...@googlegroups.com

> For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/phonegap?hl=en?hl=en

[Jeremy Wadsack]

Well, to counter your statement, I think that's exactly what Phonegap does (or is on the road to doing). I believe there are a few developers on this list who have used phonegap for cross-platform apps.

On the other hand there are very, very few cross platform apps currently in the markets. 

Another thing to consider is that if you are just looking at doing HTML 5 (i.e. don't need native hooks beyond HTML-supported ones), then you could build a mobile web site and be done with it. No native compiling. The only advantage to using phonegap (or any other platform) then would be to use the market places as a way to promote your product or brand.

--
Jeremy Wadsack

[bxgrant]

Jeremy,

Good point. There is another reason I wanted to use PhoneGap: to get
support for devices that don't yet support HTML5, specifically, the
Blackberry. I think PhoneGap may still fit the bill. I will try it
and see.

thanks,

-bxgrant

> > <phonegap%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com<phonegap%252Buns...@googlegroups.com>