Are you an owner of a small business or enterprise? Are you concerned about how your various applications can be accessed and look like from different smart devices and how easy a user can find his navigation to your core business offering? Since iOS and Android are the two most popular platforms in the mobile world, developers are taking interest to target them and this has actually forced them to create separate applications for different mobile devices. Guess what was their consideration choice. PhoneGap
In order to avoid this extra work of writing separate codes, developers as well as business owners are trying to make sure that they are able to dominate all the mobile platforms with a single set of codes.
But how is this possible?
Before creating any website for any business, it is vital that the developer should give a shot to a cross platform mobile development. PhoneGap is a mobile app development framework that is based upon the open source Apache Cordova project.
By utilizing Phonegap, developers can develop native mobile applications for any mobile devices by using CSS, Java Script and HTML without losing the features of a native app. PhoneGap Build offers cloud based service that is built on top of the PhoneGap framework.
Before we delve deep into the uses, let us understand the user interface.
The user interface or the UI layer of any PhoneGap app is a web browser view that takes up 100% of the particular device’s height and 100% of the device’s height. It can be best stated as chrome less web browser as it renders HTML content without the window decoration of a regular web browser.
You can build you application while taking the advantage of using this space and you can also build interactive, navigational and content element and application chrome into CSS and HTML based user interface. The web view that is used by PhoneGap is simply the same as the native operating system.
For iPhone applications the output is an IPA file, for Window Phone it is an XAP file and for Android app the output is an APK file. These are the same app packaging formats that are used by native apps and can be easily distributed through the appropriate ecosystems.
Why choose PhoneGap for Enterprise Mobile App development?
While evaluating the potential solutions for creating a mobile app, developers always prefer to use PhoneGap due to its advanced features and advantages.
Firstly, the platforms that the application should support were considered and mostly the goal was to launch for Android as well as iOS devices. Later plans were made to expand the support to BlackBerry and Windows devices. Creating applications for each platform using the native programming platforms like Objective-C on iOS and Java on android required maintaining at least four different set of codes in the long term.
PhoneGap acts as a wrapper around the device’s web view and hence it makes it easy to create a single base code for all the four platforms. This in fact offers the benefit of leveraging the existing skill of the developers and the designers including others in the development team.
Before starting with PhoneGap they have considered whether it supported the necessary features that are required to create the application and make it run properly. If all the features in the list were met then the developers started creating the app using PhoneGap.
Some important features that are required by most of the applications are as follows:
- Internet connectivity validation: The developer should detect if the users can easily access the data via the net.
- Animations: Usage of animations between the screens. In some cases the list view might slide off-screen in the left and show the detail view when the item is selected.
- List view: This enables the users to scroll the list of offers and select and see them in more details. The list view is a common design in mobile applications.
- Facebook SDK support: The platform should provide an interface that enables the user to log in to the application via their Facebook account.
- Notifications: The user should receive notifications regarding important information even when the application is not running.
- Device detection: Capability to determine the kind of device that the application is specifically running on and the type of features that it supports.
- Geolocation: The application should be able to determine the location of the user and provide information based on the location.
It is seen that all these are supported natively via the web view by using HTML JavaScript and CSS via the PhoneGap.
Any applications developed by using this platform can have static UIs based on HTML or have dynamic and interactive experiences that are developed by using JavaScript. Such apps can use zoom gestures to zoom in or out and the user can lock the viewport scale by using the metadata tag.
Few more advantages of using PhoneGap for Enterprise Mobile App development:
- Various companies that appreciate the standard based approach to multi-platform mobile development and HTML5 becomes the preferred choice as it balances cross platform reach with engaging user experience.
- The APIs of PhoneGap for accessing device features are powerful applications that access many mobile device capabilities like address book, accelerometer, camera and so forth.
- PhoneGap’s extensive architecture also allows the enterprises to utilize the full potential of the mobile device. It is also supported by a great community and continues to push the technology with enhancements, various tutorials and examples.
- JavaScript toolkits like jQuery Mobile, Sencha Touch or Dojox mobile. Since a lot of organizations already have in house HTML/ JavaScript expertise, it is easy for them to use their skills in most cost effective manner to develop applications that can run on various mobile devices.
PhoneGap is exclusive for any vibrant projects and it is supported by a great community for a great framework that offers significant benefits in terms of enterprise apps development.
Let’s take this further by hearing some of your experiences in working with Phonegap for Enterprise Mobile App development.
Do you find it as a perfect framework for creating hybrid mobile apps which act as native
Have you considered any alternative hybrid app framework other than Phonegap
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