Resources & Frameworks for mobile development (iphone,android) using HTML5 [closed]

Question

I am looking for resources to develop HTML5 apps for iphone primarily. Are their frameworks and tools that I can use to get started? I am looking for:

• Javascript frameworks that help with UI layout
• Touch based controls for phones
• Articles on iphone development, best practices, etc.

I searched stackoverflow and was not able to come up with a good list of resources. I am looking for examples like these http://jqtouch.com/

Xanthous

I've only found the jqtouch api too. – Renny

Answer 1

Sencha Touch is a pretty new mobile web app framework that apparently supports Android, iPhone, iPad, etc. Sencha is the framework formerly known as ExtJS.

Here's a demo of the framework: http://www.sencha.com/deploy/touch/examples/kitchensink/

Note: After looking at some screenshots, I'm not sure that the framework results in apps that follow Android UI patterns very well.

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Update: Also check out the just-announced jQuery Mobile project.

Unorthodox

As an interested in the matter as well, and despite Sencha looking as the better/most complete, I find this important: "Android 2.1 and above is our target. And for a good experience on Android, you really want to upgrade to 2.2 – Michael Mullany 3 days ago" on Twitter. If you need to get to Android's 1.5, 1.6 and 2.1 Sencha isn't a good choice. – Candlepin

To be fair, if I had more than 140 characters, I would have added "but are you sure you want to risk your sanity by trying to develop a web app that works on anything below Android 2.1 :-)" – Harmonyharmotome

Answer 2

This is a good book:

http://building-iphone-apps.labs.oreilly.com/

Renny

Answer 3

iWekbit was mentioned in articles I read recently. I did not evaluate it thought. I use jqTouch and it is a good software but its development has been slow last 6 month. With sancha out it is clear why, the guy is moving his attention to Sencha Touch.

ballmw mentions the oreilly book. I read this book, it is a good one. it shows a lot of useful stuff. Two things are important to notice in regard of this book. First, jonathan the author will be the new maintainer of jqtouch. second, the code of latest jqtouch (I write this on 2010-06-27) which is beta2 is not compatible with the examples of the book. the difference is small but out of the box it will not work.

Sencha Touch which I did not evaluate is based on Ext JS (now Sencha), while jqtouch is based on jquery. I never worked with Ext. My understanding is that Ext is not as fast as jQtouch, but take this with a huge grain of salt as I don't remember wehere I got this impression from.

IMHO Sencha Touch has one huge benefit over jqTouch - iPad support. It also has android, but for me iPad is more important.

Saccharase

Answer 4

Sencha Touch and jQTouch seem to be it as of this moment.

I'm hoping a framework/library will come out which explicitly says it can handle:

• iOS devices (e.g.: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)
• Android OS devices
• webOS devices (e.g.: Palm Pre)
• Windows Phone 7

Johannisberger

I think you're out of luck on Windows Phone 7. There are rumblings that Microsoft has a crash project to get the Phone 7 browser updated with all the latest HTML5/CSS3 goodies, but I will believe when they ship it. – Harmonyharmotome

Answer 5

Another great framework for developing for most of the available platforms is jQuery Mobile Platform which is available at www.jquerymobile.com . It provides a cross-platform compatibility between ALMOST every platform. I learned about the framework through my degree-program in Mobile Development. It is completely free and has a full documentation of implementation. Just click on the Docs tab at the top to see easy to understand implementation of jQuery Mobile Platform.

Pawnshop

Answer 6

Sencha-touch framework is the best options to get started with easy to use and well documented and since it has support for phone gap,then you don't have to think alot the devices,just build the app and upload it to phonegap and it will the build application for the rest of devices

Becket