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How to get that native iOS feel with PhoneGap

mikedellanoce.com

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Re: How to get that native iOS feel with PhoneGap

#14

Post by alanning »

briandear wrote: post #9

Why are people still using phone gap? What's the point? Might as well just build a web app. PhoneGap is the Dreamweaver of mobile.

My current client is using PhoneGap to enable publishing to numerous device types without the need to hire developers for each platform. Particularly important due to their customers' global spread; supporting multiple platforms is a decided competitive advantage and finding devs is tough these days.

Re: How to get that native iOS feel with PhoneGap

#15

Post by Evbn »

Dystopian wrote: post #10
briandear wrote: post #9

Why are people still using phone gap? What's the point? Might as well just build a web app. PhoneGap is the Dreamweaver of mobile.

Isn't PhoneGap just the interpreter for an HTML5 web app - the wrapper to get it on the phone as an ipa? Unless it's changed a lot since 1.0 I don't believe it's some kind of WYSIWIG iPhone maker that creates bloated, terrible, code.

It is called Apache Cordova now, and it is a set of implementations (one for each platform) providing JS hooks into native APIs, so they can be called from JS in a web view, so your web app runs in a native app container.

Phone gap is now a set of technical/busisness services for managing Cordova projects, such as Build deployable packages for all platforms via a web service

Re: How to get that native iOS feel with PhoneGap

#16

Post by kerrishotts »

One thing I didn't notice, but is important in stoping overscroll is to se the UIWebViewBounce property in Cordova.plist to NO. This ensures you don't have to worry about things like ScrollFix which almost-but-not-quite-solves the same issue. Why Cordova defaults this to YES is beyond me.

Re: How to get that native iOS feel with PhoneGap

#17

Post by kerrishotts »

SG- wrote: post #7

It won't ever really 'feel' like a native app but it might look like one if you try real hard. My own experience and Facebook's too is that you just won't get the performance and you'll also be dealing with quirky CSS/HTML rendering. Edit: That's not to say that you can't make an app work, but you shouldn't try to make a typical app using mobile framework that tries to mimic a native app such as jquerymobile or other…

I agree -- it is exceptionally difficult to create the look and feel just right in HTML5, CSS3, and JS. I swear that there's an "uncanny valley" for look and feel. To me it is better to bring over some of the "ios"-isms without duplicating the UI (and failing to get 100% right).

Re: How to get that native iOS feel with PhoneGap

#18

Post by kerrishotts »

briandear wrote: post #9

Why are people still using phone gap? What's the point? Might as well just build a web app. PhoneGap is the Dreamweaver of mobile.

PhoneGap is getting better with every release, and it isn't too hard to make a nice, functional app. The promise of cross-platform holds only for so long - until either a plugin doesn't exist for the platform or a platform-specific glitch gets in the way, but overall it is a fun and rewarding thing to work with.

Re: How to get that native iOS feel with PhoneGap

#19

Post by kerrishotts »

tszming wrote: post #5

Are there any working examples using these tricks so we can test the difference? (The author's product request an invite to use)

They make a /huge/ difference, especially if you stay within the tile size.

In fact, using translate3d and CSS animation is pretty much the only way to get smooth animation - if you do it with pure JS (setting left/top styles), things get very herky-jerky.

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