Should Ios Apps Be Built With Phonegap?

By Author: Susan Smith
Total Articles: 132
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Cross platform mobile app development is the current trend in the mobile market. PhoneGap is one of the most popular open source platforms that software designers worldwide use to develop mobile applications that can run effectively on every major OS platform. While PhoneGap is a widely used cross platform development framework as it facilitates the faster building of apps and helps save time, resources, and energy of the software designer, only hybrid mobile applications can be created using PhoneGap. Hybrid applications are software tools that show the characteristics of both native and web based mobile apps.

Therefore, the PhoneGap framework should be apt for developers dealing with the creation of iOS apps, since the scripting languages of HTML and JavaScript are used as part of the PhoneGap platform. However, the current research reports released by mobile market analysts reveal a startling result. They point to the fact that most iOS apps built using PhoneGap tools have been rejected by Apple in the recent past. Most users are aware of Apple’s strict guidelines for uploading a mobile application to the App Store. ...
... But a lack of explanation for the rejection of almost every iOS application built using PhoneGap has given birth to severe criticism against the technology giant’s app building instructions.

Therefore, the general recommendation for mobile app developers would be to stop building iOS applications using the PhoneGap platform. Listed below are few reasons responsible for the non conformity of PhoneGap with iOS:

PhoneGap’s Online Mode is Considered Risky – The online mode of PhoneGap is a feature allowing mobile app developers to alter application functionality after they have been installed and are running in Apple devices. According to a statement released by Apple, this ability enjoyed by PhoneGap poses huge risks to the iOS apps since they stop running properly. App developers on the other hand have complained that this is a routine procedure that they have to follow during application testing.

PhoneGap Applications are Incompatible with Apple’s Operating System – All iOS apps built using the PhoneGap tools have reportedly shown incompatibility symptoms of incompatibility with the iOS beta 3.0 version. This is the latest and most recently updated version of iOS that provides the push notification for viewing messages. This means that all iOS users should have access to the SMS style of messaging so that they can share any type of information faster and more effectively. But it has been observed that whenever an iOS app is built using PhoneGap, the push notification feature fails to function properly.

Apple is Against the Release of Cross Platform Apps – Another possible reason as to why all mobile applications built using PhoneGap tools are now being rejected by the App Store is that they are cross platform in nature and hence can run effectively in Nokia and Palm Pre mobile devices too. Apple’s preference for exclusivity is well known. Ever since the launch of the iPhone in 2007, Apple has adopted an anti competitive strategy that the technology giant does not want to give up on now.

It is clear from the above discussion that a contemporary mobile application developer must not build iOS apps using the PhoneGap framework. However, Apple’s rejection of the PhoneGap built iOS apps has raised widespread controversy and criticism. It points to a non democratic app development environment.

The author is associated with one of the top enterprise application developer companies, iPhone app developers in Dallas TX and iPad app development companies