Mobile Web Frameworks

HTML 5 Fest Oct. 2011

Html vs Native

No access to hardware features
With PhoneGap it can
No need for multiple apps per platform
Instant updates (No app store policies)
Reuse html, css and JS knowledge
Browser limits (e.g: cross domain)

Financial Times test case

Apple takes 30% of subscription revenue
Apple wants to control subscriber data (advertising)
Pulled it from app store, rewritten with html 5
More traffic compared to the native app
Source: Reuters, FT Web-based app more popular than app sold in Apple store

Mobile frameworks features

Lightweight (vs. full blown widget frameworks)
Declarative (markup driven) configuration
Native looking widgets
Touch events
Animations, Theming (it's css after all)
Data integration (local storage, ajax etc..)

Our sample app

Git hub repositories viewer for a specific user.

Sample code at html5-mobile-demo repo on github:

https://github.com/MeirKriheli/html5-mobile-demo

jQuery mobile

Dual license: MIT or GPL
Declarative
Pages, dialogs, toolbars, buttons, forms, lists
Documentation: OK
Unstable APIs in previous release (seems better since 1.0rc2 landed)

jQuery mobile

Demo

Sencha Touch

License: GPL or Commercial
Programmatic
Documentation: Very Good
Feature rich (Widgets and data, MVC)
Webkit only

Sencha Touch

Demo

Sencha Touch

Was a simple demo
Provides all that's needed for an MVC apps

Dojo Mobile

BSD or Academic Free License
Declarative or programmatic
Documentation: Usable, in flux
Lots of things in flux 1.7 release (rc1 right now)
Good extra tools (build, AMD format etc)

Dojo mobile

Demo

Dojo mobile

There's also app and models
things are in a flux

RTL supprot ?

No way
I Might add support to jquery-mobile if time permits
In practice: When hell freezes over :(

Summary

Framework	Widgets	MVC	Documentation	License
jQuery Mobile	Basic	No	Good	MIT/GPL
Sencha Touch	Rich	Yes	Very Good	GPLv3/Commercial
Dojo Mobile	Rich	In flux	Meh	BSD/Academic

Links

jQuery mobile, Docs and demos
Dojo mobile, tutorial, showcase
Sencha Touch, demos
10 Mobile Application Frameworks For Easy Development lists more frameworks

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