Curious to understand whether Appcelerator is the best choice currently for building native apps based on HTML5 and JS.
I'd like to build an app for iPad and Android tablets so HTML5 seems the way to go. I've looked at Appcelerator and also Sencha - the latter seems to be geared more towards mobile sites rather than apps (though these can be wrapped into apps using something like Phone Gap).
It'd be a nice bonus to have a separate mobile site but native apps are my first priority.
OK so I've looked into this more. From what I understand the difference is:
- Appcelerator transforms HTML and JS (built around its own client library) into native apps with native components.
- Sencha builds HTML5 sites using CSS3 to mimic native components and behaviors. These sites can potentially be wrapped with Appcelerator (using a Web View), Phone Gap or similar to be submitted to the Apple App Store/Android Market.
Looks like the advantage of Appcelerator is the speed and UI consistency of using true native components - and perhaps a greater chance of Apple including it in the App Store since the output (I think) is entirely Objective C. Advantage of Sencha is getting a HTML5 mobile site "for free" (if your main aim is to build apps) and in some cases more flexibility since the Appcelerator libraries don't exposure all the native functionality.
In my case I want to build something around Maps. The Appcelerator Maps component is just too limited to fit my needs right now so I'll be going down the Sencha route.
Hope this is helpful to someone. Let me know if I've missed/misunderstood something along the way.
Almost. Appcelerator Mobile is a cross compiler with a component framework. It takes Javascript and compiles it into Objective-C and links it against their framework. You can build completely native apps in it.
It's a little confusing in Justin's case as he is using it to host a UIWebView which is running his game. You can do the same thing in Objective-C with a few lines of code and some magic mousedrags in Interface Builder. However, I believe he is also using Appcelerator's sqllite bindings to save game state from the UIWebView. You can also do this in Objective-C by making your own bridge from the UIWebView using intercepted custom URLs (which always feels like a dirty hack - not as clean as Flash's DOM injection using ExternalInterface).
Btw, Justin is part of a two person podcast I listen to regularly. I'd recommend subscribing:
Comments
Curious to understand whether Appcelerator is the best choice currently for building native apps based on HTML5 and JS.
I'd like to build an app for iPad and Android tablets so HTML5 seems the way to go. I've looked at Appcelerator and also Sencha - the latter seems to be geared more towards mobile sites rather than apps (though these can be wrapped into apps using something like Phone Gap).
It'd be a nice bonus to have a separate mobile site but native apps are my first priority.
Appreciate any thoughts.
OK so I've looked into this more. From what I understand the difference is:
- Appcelerator transforms HTML and JS (built around its own client library) into native apps with native components.
- Sencha builds HTML5 sites using CSS3 to mimic native components and behaviors. These sites can potentially be wrapped with Appcelerator (using a Web View), Phone Gap or similar to be submitted to the Apple App Store/Android Market.
Looks like the advantage of Appcelerator is the speed and UI consistency of using true native components - and perhaps a greater chance of Apple including it in the App Store since the output (I think) is entirely Objective C. Advantage of Sencha is getting a HTML5 mobile site "for free" (if your main aim is to build apps) and in some cases more flexibility since the Appcelerator libraries don't exposure all the native functionality.
In my case I want to build something around Maps. The Appcelerator Maps component is just too limited to fit my needs right now so I'll be going down the Sencha route.
Hope this is helpful to someone. Let me know if I've missed/misunderstood something along the way.
Almost. Appcelerator Mobile is a cross compiler with a component framework. It takes Javascript and compiles it into Objective-C and links it against their framework. You can build completely native apps in it.
It's a little confusing in Justin's case as he is using it to host a UIWebView which is running his game. You can do the same thing in Objective-C with a few lines of code and some magic mousedrags in Interface Builder. However, I believe he is also using Appcelerator's sqllite bindings to save game state from the UIWebView. You can also do this in Objective-C by making your own bridge from the UIWebView using intercepted custom URLs (which always feels like a dirty hack - not as clean as Flash's DOM injection using ExternalInterface).
Btw, Justin is part of a two person podcast I listen to regularly. I'd recommend subscribing:
http://techzinglive.com/