4 ms·

I'd do yourself a favor and take the time to learn native mobile development.

by allsystemsgo 12y ago

Winningest 12y ago
Why? (non-rhetorical)
- allsystemsgo 12y ago
  I'm an iOS dev. A few reasons: 1. Payscale for native development is higher 2. Your product will look infinitely better. It can do more things that Phonegap can't. 3. Supporting future devices using Phonegap will be difficult. Apple TV SDK? What about the watch thing that could also come out? 4. Xcode is great.
- untog 12y ago
  It's very difficult to get webviews to be as performant and "right feeling" as native. That said, I think the case is very overstated, and that majority of users (i.e., not 20-somethings from Silicon Valley) won't notice or care if your app has some rough edges. I've been working on a mobile webapp, and I'm happy with the trade offs - it's cross-platform, and it's "good enough".
  - mwcampbell 12y ago
    I suspect that the majority of people, meaning those who aren't 20-somethings in Silicon Valley, can feel that something isn't right in non-native apps; they just can't articulate what or why. It might actually be more frustrating for them, since they don't understand what's going on, and it just contributes to their general frustration with the all-around crappy state of software.
    - untog 12y ago
      I'd love to see a study that proves any of that.
- reticulated 12y ago
  Because you're going to be implementing the UI twice anyway unless you generate a completely custom one that sits between platforms. As an example, look at the linked article - can you imagine an average iDevice user instinctively knowing how to interact with that UI? There's probably nothing wrong with it per-se, but you've instantly alienated a significant non-technical audience by going off-piste with your cross-platform design.
nicholasreed 12y ago
Android or iOS? Swift? There are many, many choice for "native" devs. Every choice has sacrifices, including this prototype-focused one.
- brianchu 12y ago
  For each native platform, there actually aren't many (viable) choices. Android has Android (framework) and Java. iOS has iOS (framework), and a choice between two very similar and interoperable languages, Objective-C and Swift. If you decide to go HTML5 cross-platform you have Phonegap vs. other web wrappers (wrappers); Ionic, Famo.us, Sencha, hand-rolling-your-own (frameworks); and finally just JavaScript (language). This is ignoring other cross-platform things like Xamarin (which consists of Xamarin the framework, C#, and still also the iOS or Android frameworks, depending on your targets), Titanium, etc.

I'd do yourself a favor and take the time to learn native mobile development.

Winningest 12y ago

Why? (non-rhetorical)

allsystemsgo 12y ago
I'm an iOS dev. A few reasons: 1. Payscale for native development is higher 2. Your product will look infinitely better. It can do more things that Phonegap can't. 3. Supporting future devices using Phonegap will be difficult. Apple TV SDK? What about the watch thing that could also come out? 4. Xcode is great.
untog 12y ago
It's very difficult to get webviews to be as performant and "right feeling" as native. That said, I think the case is very overstated, and that majority of users (i.e., not 20-somethings from Silicon Valley) won't notice or care if your app has some rough edges. I've been working on a mobile webapp, and I'm happy with the trade offs - it's cross-platform, and it's "good enough".
- mwcampbell 12y ago
  I suspect that the majority of people, meaning those who aren't 20-somethings in Silicon Valley, can feel that something isn't right in non-native apps; they just can't articulate what or why. It might actually be more frustrating for them, since they don't understand what's going on, and it just contributes to their general frustration with the all-around crappy state of software.
  - untog 12y ago
    I'd love to see a study that proves any of that.
reticulated 12y ago
Because you're going to be implementing the UI twice anyway unless you generate a completely custom one that sits between platforms. As an example, look at the linked article - can you imagine an average iDevice user instinctively knowing how to interact with that UI? There's probably nothing wrong with it per-se, but you've instantly alienated a significant non-technical audience by going off-piste with your cross-platform design.

nicholasreed 12y ago

Android or iOS? Swift? There are many, many choice for "native" devs. Every choice has sacrifices, including this prototype-focused one.

brianchu 12y ago
For each native platform, there actually aren't many (viable) choices. Android has Android (framework) and Java. iOS has iOS (framework), and a choice between two very similar and interoperable languages, Objective-C and Swift. If you decide to go HTML5 cross-platform you have Phonegap vs. other web wrappers (wrappers); Ionic, Famo.us, Sencha, hand-rolling-your-own (frameworks); and finally just JavaScript (language). This is ignoring other cross-platform things like Xamarin (which consists of Xamarin the framework, C#, and still also the iOS or Android frameworks, depending on your targets), Titanium, etc.