Could somebody list some things that you can do using native iPhone/iPad development but you can't using HTML5? I want to understand for what kind of apps is HTML5 usefull. I like it because it is an open technology which you can reuse to target other mobiles like android. I remember Steve Jobs said HTML5 is the future but I want to understand hat are it's limitations
The main difference I guess is that with an HTML5 app you don't have access to the native APIs and access to onboard devices (like the accelerometer, camera, etc.).
If you use something like Phonegap though you can have the best of both worlds.
Related
We are developing web browser application for mobile phones and I am trying to figure out a way that I can gain access to the camera and take a photo and then upload it to the internet. But so far what I was suggested is to use phonegap and create native application. Phonegap is fine but it is not what I am looking for because my client wants to design forms and these html forms somehow will be able to trigger the camera and take photo and upload it to a server. Do you think developing a native API for every platform and having access to its functions from the web browsers is possible? What your suggestion would be?
(Note: My customer only want application that can run on mobile web browsers no native application runs on I-Phone, windows mobile, Blackberry and Android)
Thanks a lot...
Web apps (not wrapped in native code as Kumar details) cannot access all device hardware and sensors. Location support is available on iOS and Android, but camera access is only available on Android (via JavaScript). Similarly, device motion APIs are not accessible on Android, but are on iOS.
As you can see, support is sketchy and if you are truly looking to use such features, you are better off (and in many cases, realistically looking at) writing native apps for each platform you intend to support.
HTML5 is not yet at the point where it can replace native apps. It can do some of the things that native apps can, but even then performance is suboptimal. Currently, native apps may be more difficult and time-consuming, but they are necessary.
Calling android native APIs from javascript functions of embedded WebView
Use JS to call Java code which will in-turn call the Camera API or whatever else you are looking for.
It's not going to be possible to do it on iPhone, the only known way of accessing the camera is through the Cocoa layer.
Where could someone get the code or guidelines to create a universal pedometer app for various phones?
or would you have to create a different app for each phone?
or could you just create an app for android & iphone?
How would a coder go about doing the task? where to look for help?
Titanium Mobile is a cross-platform dev environment that lets you write apps in javascript that are then compiled into native apps for iPhone/iPad and Android. I haven't used it myself, but I've heard that it does not completely suck. I do not know whether it supports the accelerometers in these devices (which would be necessary for a pedometer app), but it probably does.
However, since you'd have to learn a bunch of new stuff just to use Titanium, it might make more sense to just pick a platform and spend your time learning to program it natively (Android has more marketshare now - maybe - so I'd recommend just learning that; Android is much easier to work with than iPhone).
Titanium Mobile does support Accelerometer.
For iPhone, there is an offical library in the framework that will detect steps, but it will only work from iOS7.
Look here: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreMotion.framework
Please be aware there are restrictions for what kind of Apps can run in the background on an iPhone.
A friend of mine told me that some frameworks (PhoneGap and/or QuickConnect) can transform my HTML/JS/CSS code to an iOS App.
Personally, I hate this kind of frameworks because when you get a bug, it's very hard to debug. But, on the other hand, as i'm starting learning iOS programming, I find Objective-C hard to learn.
Did anyone tried these tools? What are their limits? What about performances?
Thank you,
Regards.
These frameworks are handy if you are coming from web development world. Since they allow you to develop using HTML/CSS/Js you'll be able to get going quite rapidly.
Even though they offer more interaction with the native capabilities of the device (contacts, camera, accelerometer, etc.) than pure web development (using Sencha Touch or jQuery Mobile for example) they are still more limited than a native application.
Webkit
Most of these solution are focused on devices using a WebKit based browser for the rendering. Which is used by many of the main mobile OS :
Symbian, iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Bada, etc.
Main exception being Windows Phone which uses Internet Explorer
Cross-platform
Their goal is to enable cross-platform development ever by wrapping your web development into a native app (PhoneGap, Titanium) or by "translating" to the appropriate language for the targeted device (RhoMobile Rhodes, MoSync).
iPhone specific
Aiming several platforms implies that some phone specific features might not be so easily supported. And the UI won't look as native since it's targeting different OS. So if you are only aiming iOS4 you could maybe try some of the more specific solutions such as:
iWebKit
Ansca Corona
Performances
For standard apps you should'nt notice much difference. But if you are planning to develop games some of these frameworks are probably not the best solution. Corona claims to be appropriate...
Caution
If you plan to develop a commercial application beware of Apple's policy.
Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine
Many applications using these tools/frameworks are still accepted but there is nothing official.
Edit: As stated by Rydell the policy has changed since September 9.
I was looking into PhoneGap and Titanium framework, and I did not clearly understand how to they work, let's suppose I have already developed an app for android or iphone, can I run this app on another mobile with a different OS with PhoneGap or Titanium help?
Or I have to develop again my app with PhoneGap/Titanium framwork?
In this case I have full support at all the features like thread, JSON or XML parsing and so on?
Thank you
PhoneGap basically takes a client-side web app (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and wraps the whole thing in a native device's web view control. You can hook to some of the device's native functions, but as you can guess, it's pretty limited compared to native development. But easy, and brings in a whole range of skills that a lot of people already have. That's really the appeal of PhoneGap.
Titanium is also html/javascript oriented, but it actually claims to compile to native code. Their sample "kitchen sink" app demos quite a lot of the native APIs, at least for the iPhone. I doubt you'd be able to deal directly with threading, but JSON for sure, and I'd think XML as well.
Titanium has full support for JSON or XML parsing.
You can see Titanium examples - Kitchen Sink - for more details.
The idea behind phone gap is that you can take a browser based client app that is written in html/css/javascript and use phonegap to gain access to some native mobile hardware like contacts, gps, accelerometer, etc. Phonegap allows you also to build this web app for different mobile devices all using the same web app code.
To answer the first part of your question, no, you would not be able to take a developed app and use PhoneGap or Titanium to run the app on another device.You would have to write the app in either the PhoneGap or Titanium Framework and then build the application to the devices you want to support through the tools that each give you.
For example, you would write your code in JavaScript(Titanium) or HTML/CSS/JavaScript(PhoneGap), then use the app's build tool to create the file that would be released onto the phone.
Am looking into developing an iPhone native app using Titanium Developer
Since this is still in beta, I am wondering if there are any better options and/or if its a good idea using such software to develop native apps (which are not games; not graphic intensive)
If you don't want to wait, you can do what a lot of us did: develop apps in Cocoa Touch. It works perfectly well for games as well as non-graphic intensive apps.
The similar and more mature PhoneGap framework has been used in a number of iPhone apps and Apple only seems to object if the application autoupdates.
That being said, I wouldn't recommend using web frameworks unless your application is really simple--you will get a much better experience from a native application (on both Android and iPhone)
My company uses Titanium and it's working fine so far. It's also a pleasure to develop iPhone app using javascript and co. I'd recomend you give it a try, it's really simple to set up and start coding.
Some reading up: http://boldr.net/iphone-app-with-titanium-mobile/