PhoneGap [EOL] Reviews

The product makes it easy to start developing cross-platform HTML5-based applications for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone based devices. It leverages developers' existing HTML and javascript skills and uses a familiar paradigm to expose additional functionality (such as camera or location services).

Because it's a generic platform, it doesn't fully leverage all the subtleties of some of the platforms it runs on. Also, because the resulting applications are browser based, they don't always provide the fidelity and behavior of a true, native experience.

* HTML5 app platform using standard web technologies.
* PhoneGap is basically a native wrapper of a web app.
* Provides a bridge between JavaScript and native device APIs, meaning that a web app written in javascript will have the ability to access your device's native features such as camera, push notification, storage, contacts, mail clients, and many other native functions.
* Binding a web app with a PhoneGap has an advantage of distributing your app like a native app on mobile app stores (iOS app store, google play, windows marketplace, etc.).
* Free open source framework which was recently acquired by adobe, so there is no chance of you having to pay for it.
* API documentation is well maintained with a self explanatory sample code.
* Single code base for all platforms (cross-device compatibility), meaning you have to write an application just once and most of the code is shared between different platforms (iOS, Android, WebOS, BlackBerry OS 6.0+, BlackBerry OS 5.x, WP7, Symbian, Bada).
* Plugin support on github for various platforms, the plugin works like addons. This means that if you want a specific feature on a platform you can add the related plugin and start using it right away. There is no need to start from scratch.
* Strongly event-driven.

* Look and feel are not the same as a native app.
* Performance is not good, especially if the application is loaded with graphics. However, you can implement caching or native graphics acceleration, but still, performance wise, a native app wins.
* Lack of pre-built UI widgets, transitions, and standard controls.
* Page transition and 3D animation run slower as the GPU usage depends on the web browser running the web app.
* Portability support is limited, especially for BlackBerry.
* In order to integrate platform specific plugin's, you will need the SDK installed for the respective platform.

I am a mobile application developer. For me, PhoneGap happens to be quite useful as I can share my existing code (javascript code) on different platforms, and I therefore do not have to do the same thing on different platforms. Plus with PhoneGap, I can sell my web app easily on different app stores.