Mobile Frameworks to Create Mobile Applications
Web application frameworks make web development faster and easier. And with the growth of mobile devices like tablet PCs and smart phones, there is an increasing demand for mobile frameworks to make mobile application development easier. Here are a few mobile frameworks to make things easier for you.
Sencha Touch
Sencha Touch is a creation of SenchaInc, an HTML5 JavaScript mobile framework, which allows the developers to make web applications that look native on Android and iPhone touch screen systems. Sencha Touch is built quite like ExtJS component, so if you have worked on ExtJS, you will have no problems with this one.
jQuery Mobile
This is a very popular framework for mobile web applications. A touch optimized framework for tablets and smart phones- it is an integrated interface system across all famous mobile platforms. It is built on solid jQuery foundation. It has lightweight code that is built with iterative enhancements and a flexible design, which helps you gain more results by doing less work.
WebApp.Net
Webapp.Net is a powerful yet lightweight JavaScript based framework that uses AJAX technology. It is an open source application and gives a complete set of useful components for developing advanced mobile applications easily and quickly.
DHTMLX Touch
DHTMLX Touch is a JavaScript library based on HTML5. It is used for developing mobile web apps. It is not just any set of UI tools but an absolute framework that permits you to develop attention-grabbing cross platform applications for touch screen devices and mobile phones.
This framework is compatible with all major web browsers that work on mobile platforms. Apps developed with the help of DHTMLX run fine on iPhone, iPad, Android based phones and other devices.
jQTouch
This is not actually a framework, but more like a jQuery plugin made for mobile web development for the iPhone platform and other smart phones. This is a part of a project run by Sencha labs. The default theme is black and looks great. It is open source and supports native animations, themes and automatic navigation for mobile browsers.
iWebKit
iWebKit is a package made to help you as you develop a website or a web app for iPod Touch, iPhone, and other compatible platforms. It is extremely simple to understand and you can work on it even if you don’t have enough HTML knowledge. There are many tutorials that make things even easier.
Jo HTML5 Mobile Application Framework
Joapp is basically a widget framework that has works on DOM. It is open source and comes with cross platform webOS, an OpenBSD license, and Symbian, Android, Chrome, Safari and Dashboard widgets. It’s efficient but light JavaScript runs only at about 8K, and has no dependencies. It is compatible with PhoneGap and most JavaScript frameworks.
iUI
iUI is a mobile framework that consists of CSS, JavaScript library, and images to help you create advanced mobile web apps for compatible devices like iPhone. There are many features of iUI, like creation of iPhone like interface and navigational menus using standard HTML. Knowledge of JavaScript is not mandatory to create iPhone like interface or to develop mobile web pages.
Sproutcore
It is another HTML5 framework that is used to make responsive apps in modern web browsers without the use of plugins. Apps made by Sproutcore follow a specific design pattern and allow you to manage your app code easily.
Zepto.js
Zepto is a simple JavaScript based mobile framework for WebKit mobile browsers. It has syntax similar to jQuery. It has a 2k to 5k library which can handle the basic work of an API so you can concentrate on important stuff.
There are a lot of cool choices, and it sometimes gets confusing. But if you take my suggestion, the best ones are Sencha Touch and jQuery Mobile. They have a lot of admirers.
2 Comments
Oren Rubin
03.21.2011
Some extras:
Sencha:
pro: has great tools for building apps and animations (WYSIWYG).
con: works only on webkit. Everything is javascript based (need to write a custom solution for SEO).
jQueryMobile:
pro: it’s jQuery (popular). support old (class B and C) browsers.
cons: lots of KBs, still a bit buggy (some aren’t their fault though, e.g. FIXED positioned tabs).
SproutCore:
pro: real MVC.
con: lots of KBs.
Zepto and XUI are slim but are not a full fledged frameworks.. leave much of the work to you.
Maria Nemenman
03.22.2011
Thanks for sharing your knowledges, Oren!
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