Phonegap 2.0 released • Hacker News Board

Re: Phonegap 2.0 released

#21

Post by pedalpete » Fri, Jul 20, 2012, 11:49 PM UTC

digitalpacman wrote: post #19

It's a shame that phones still can't properly handle web views well. My company went with PhoneGap and tried implementing webviews but no matter what, couldn't develop an app that ran well enough on phones. The folly of PhoneGap isn't really PhoneGap's fault, but their premise. Phones are NOT ready for Html5 apps. Tried. Failed. Now rewriting the entire app natively.

can you give some insight as to what specific issue you were having? Was it HTML5 that was the real culprit? Or javascript performance? Did you try smaller javascript libraries, etc. etc.

Re: Phonegap 2.0 released

#22

Post by nobleach » Sat, Jul 21, 2012, 12:18 AM UTC

isnie wrote: post #7

Used Phonegap on 2 projects and I have to say, never again. If you want to have the job done right and you want a quality product, go native. We lost days(weeks even) of time chasing an obscure bug in the location tracking of Phonegap. Also, the end result wasn't very good to be honest. It lacked the fluidity and responsiveness you have with native apps. sure, you can develop things 2 as fast but then you spend all t…

When you have a team that has no Obj-C/iOS development experience, you'll lose more than a couple of weeks. We have one Java guy on staff, and he's never touched Dalvik. Our usage of Sencha Touch has produced relatively good results. The sheer force required to write a native app for multiple platforms is too costly. If I hit a case that I can't handle in JS, I won't take the job.

Re: Phonegap 2.0 released

#23

Post by chudi » Sat, Jul 21, 2012, 12:44 AM UTC

Id tried phonegap in a project, completely disaster. Now in a new project for Android, we use the same concept as phonegap, a Javascript interface plus a WebView and JQuery Mobile with only the stuff that we need and we are having better results, although its not like a native app.

Re: Phonegap 2.0 released

#24

Post by jenius » Sat, Jul 21, 2012, 1:30 AM UTC

I gave this a shot and am already having a huge amount more trouble working with the command line interface than I did with the > v1.9 xcode template.

The way it's put together is not elegant at all - it's used as a command line tool, but they just drop you a random folder which has the executables and a few other folders that the executable references, so it can't be copied to /usr/local/bin, nor can it be symlinked. So creating a new app for me was pretty unnatural.

On top of that, building it apparently can only be done from the command line and not inside of xcode, and it uses outdated xcode tools. The command line build required me to have the /Developer directory, which I do not have as it was no longer installed with Xcode from version 4 and up.

Really unhappy with this initially for a number of reasons. Don't get me wrong, I love working with the command line, and I like how rubymotion uses the command line so much working with ios apps, but I'm disappointed in how awkward this initial release is. I might just continue working with 1.9.0 until the next release.

Re: Phonegap 2.0 released

#25

Post by hammersend » Sat, Jul 21, 2012, 1:36 AM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #21

digitalpacman wrote: post #19

It's a shame that phones still can't properly handle web views well. My company went with PhoneGap and tried implementing webviews but no matter what, couldn't develop an app that ran well enough on phones. The folly of PhoneGap isn't really PhoneGap's fault, but their premise. Phones are NOT ready for Html5 apps. Tried. Failed. Now rewriting the entire app natively.

can you give some insight as to what specific issue you were having? Was it HTML5 that was the real culprit? Or javascript performance? Did you try smaller javascript libraries, etc. etc.

I can't speak for the GP and I haven't used Phonegap but the problems I have encountered trying to use webviews in apps revolve around touch latency and animation. When a user touches an element on the screen they expect instant response and I haven't seen that in any app using web technology. Also, animation needs to be comparable to what you see natively. Even trying to scroll images without scrolling the whole view is a recipe for lag and choppiness. I don't want any part of that in my apps.

Re: Phonegap 2.0 released

#26

Post by no_more_death » Sat, Jul 21, 2012, 3:37 AM UTC

hammersend wrote: post #25

pedalpete wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can you give some insight as to what specific issue you were having? Was it HTML5 that was the real culprit? Or javascript performance? Did you try smaller javascript libraries, etc. etc.

I can't speak for the GP and I haven't used Phonegap but the problems I have encountered trying to use webviews in apps revolve around touch latency and animation. When a user touches an element on the screen they expect instant response and I haven't seen that in any app using web technology. Also, animation needs to be comparable to what you see natively. Even trying to scroll images without scrolling the whole vie…

Google's solution for touch latency: https://developers.google.com/mobile/articles/fast_buttons

Re: Phonegap 2.0 released

#27

Post by briandear » Sat, Jul 21, 2012, 3:55 AM UTC

Phonegap is nothing more than a stopgap for people that can't afford iOS devs. I can think of no benefits for the end user. It's a sloppy solution. Better off just doing a mobile web app instead.

Re: Phonegap 2.0 released

#28

Post by gavingmiller » Sat, Jul 21, 2012, 4:27 AM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #21

digitalpacman wrote: post #19

It's a shame that phones still can't properly handle web views well. My company went with PhoneGap and tried implementing webviews but no matter what, couldn't develop an app that ran well enough on phones. The folly of PhoneGap isn't really PhoneGap's fault, but their premise. Phones are NOT ready for Html5 apps. Tried. Failed. Now rewriting the entire app natively.

can you give some insight as to what specific issue you were having? Was it HTML5 that was the real culprit? Or javascript performance? Did you try smaller javascript libraries, etc. etc.

Having done multiple native apps on iOS, and a couple of phone gap based apps, the overwhelming flaw is that web apps don't _feel_ like native apps -- it's partially an HTML5, partially a js, partially iOS web view issue. It's the nuances that I as a developer notice, and I feel like my app is always 80% of what it could be, no matter which great 'new' library I try.

PhoneGap reminds me of the anecdote about a carpenter that sands the back of a bookshelf, "why do that" he gets asked, "no one will see it" and his response is "but I will." That's how I feel developing a phonegap app -- most people don't see the partially finished app; but I do.

Re: Phonegap 2.0 released

#29

Post by marknutter » Sat, Jul 21, 2012, 4:52 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #27

Phonegap is nothing more than a stopgap for people that can't afford iOS devs. I can think of no benefits for the end user. It's a sloppy solution. Better off just doing a mobile web app instead.

This is pure, unadulterated FUD. If your advice is to just do a mobile web app, what on earth is wrong with packaging it up into a phonegap app so that you can access a few extra APIs?

Re: Phonegap 2.0 released

#30

Post by willtheperson » Sat, Jul 21, 2012, 5:03 AM UTC

isnie wrote: post #7

Used Phonegap on 2 projects and I have to say, never again. If you want to have the job done right and you want a quality product, go native. We lost days(weeks even) of time chasing an obscure bug in the location tracking of Phonegap. Also, the end result wasn't very good to be honest. It lacked the fluidity and responsiveness you have with native apps. sure, you can develop things 2 as fast but then you spend all t…

Not all apps use native controls. Not all apps should be built on PhoneGap.

At my company, we need to build apps rapidly. By rapid, I mean 1 week for a testable product. I have a app skeleton that implements backbone.js and some "native" css controls ready to go. I can easily turn around an app in that time.

Is it as fast as native? No. Do most people notice that? No. Does it prove the app concept we were trying to test? Yes.

So we basically use it as a prototyping platform and if the app has a lot of users, we'll go native. From my experience, it's much faster to prototype in html5 than it is in obj-c.