iOS phonegap pros and cons?

[MACloop]

Hello,
I have spend the last days investigating the phonegap in order to get a picture of this alternative way to develop iPhone Apps. Has anyone been using it?

What are the pros and cons in using it?

Is it possible to do everything you can do by using objective-c - I mean like communicationg with the mapkit for intance?

Can you be sure that Apple will go on allowing this type of apps - it would be rather annoying to make a couple of apps which in the future will be rejected from the App Store?

Is using phonegap for development stabile and robust?

Is it possible to combinate html/javascript/css/.. with traditionally objective-c? For example build the grafical part with webtechnics and other parts using objective-c?

Any thoughts and/or experiences are interessting!

Thanks in advance!
MACloop

 

[joshuajestelle]

Great questions. Unfortunately I don't have much in the line for answers for you, but I also have been looking into what phone gap can do, but haven't made it too far yet.

Have you given it a try yet? Have you managed to answer any of your questions?

Cheers,
Josh

 

[MACloop]

Great questions. Unfortunately I don't have much in the line for answers for you, but I also have been looking into what phone gap can do, but haven't made it too far yet.

Have you given it a try yet? Have you managed to answer any of your questions?

Cheers,
Josh

Hello,
I did not really find out much more about the phoneGap. What I heard is that if you are about to create a simple application using phoneGap may be a good and fast way to do it. If you need more complex functionalities, the phoneGap is not a good choice at the moment because it does not offer everything available in the SDK.
Regarding crashes and robustness - I did look at the apps made by using phoneGap (they are listed at the phonegap homepage) and the user comments where not that possitive. Of course the comments written there are a hint only, because I do not know the programmers at all and neither the user who left comments on iTunes. My conclusion is that the programmer creating iPhone app with phoneGap probably has to be well informed about both phoneGap and iPhone development in order to create a good working app. The comments from the users in iTunes where alot about crashes and to avoid crashes, there is no easy way I think. I have decided to wait some time with using phoneGap. I think it is a real good idea and I am sure that it will be futher developed and a good alternative in the future.

As I wrote in the first post - any ideas and comments about this are interesting to me (and perhaps to other programmers here too)
Thanks in advance!
MACloop

 

[firewood]

Is it possible to combinate html/javascript/css/.. with traditionally objective-c? For example build the grafical part with webtechnics and other parts using objective-c?

Lots of apps do this. Using a built-in webview is an approved API and a well documented way to present a UI, or to call Javascript helper functions from Objective-C.

Some apps in the store are just thinly disguised wrappers which launch built-in html5/css/javascript web apps.

You can also use a hook back to Objective C from Javascript. But what doesn't seem to be allowed is to have the app capable of downloading or running any Javascript using your extended API from the net, or otherwise visible as source code to the user.

 

[MACloop]

Lots of apps do this. Using a built-in webview is an approved API and a well documented way to present a UI, or to call Javascript helper functions from Objective-C.

Some apps in the store are just thinly disguised wrappers which launch built-in html5/css/javascript web apps.

You can also use a hook back to Objective C from Javascript. But what doesn't seem to be allowed is to have the app capable of downloading or running any Javascript using your extended API from the net, or otherwise visible as source code to the user.

Thanks! That is interesting and new to me! I suppose that the support for using phoneGap in a more complex way will come. I found it very interesting what you wrote about javascript and many app using it.. Could you give me an pseudo-example of that - only giving me the structure of such a flow? Once again - thanks for you comment!
MACloop