How to build hybrid applications for the iPhone
8/5/2009 |
A new book from Addison-Wesley's Developer Library, "Developing Hybrid Applications for the iPhone: Using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to Build Dynamic Apps for the iPhone," by Lee S. Barney, explains not only how to develop JavaScript-based applications for the iPhone, but also how to eventually target other smartphones (in particular Android and Symbian, with Windows Mobile farther down the road) with the same applications. Barney covers two packages designed for this purpose: QuickConnect and PhoneGap. Barney himself is the brains behind QuickConnect, so it quite naturally gets the bulk of his attention.
[ In InfoWorld's Test Center, Peter Wayner discusses PhoneGap and other iPhone development tools and details his rejection at the hands of the iPhone App Store. ]
August Trometer of FoggyNoggin Software says in the book's blurb, "For those not ready to tackle the complexities of Objective-C, this is a great way to get started building iPhone apps. If you know the basics of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, you'll be building apps in no time." That's true only if you also have a recent Mac with OSX, have an iPhone or iPod Touch, and are comfortable with Apple's Dashcode and Xcode IDEs.
The vagaries and caprices of the iPhone App Store approval process are not addressed in this book that I can see. For that you might want to read about Peter Wayner's hair-raising "iPhone App Store roulette: A tale of rejection." Wayner's rejection experience came about because he was using PhoneGap, "a thin wrapper around the UIWebView object." Whether QuickConnect, which uses delegates to UIApplication, UIWebView, and UIAccelerometer, will lead to the same issues at the App Store remains an open question.
If an iPhone developer with experience submitting QuickConnect applications to the App Store would e-mail me or leave a comment here, I'd be grateful.
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