technologies used for mobile app

Question

A very very basic question:

I do not have any experience on mobile apps, but the next project I am going to work on is a mobile app using something called phonegap and html5. I know that we can develop native apps for android or ios using their api but I was wondering how to develop a web app for mobile?
I mean what technology would be used with html, what would be the backend. Like when I develop web application for pc I use Java and SQL as backend and html JavaScript for frontend, same way what technologies are used when a webapp is developed for mobile.
** Mobile web app means mobile application developed using web technologies and which would be installed on mobile devices.

Edit
What I am looking for is that how we can develop a installable native web app for mobile devices and what technology would be used for which part like what would be frontend, what would be backend etc..

Answer 1

PhoneGap is an open source framework for building cross-platform mobile applications with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

UI is designed in HTML,CSS and some libraries like jQuery Mobile or JQTouch can be used. That is about front end, and about back end,here in this blogpost,it is explained that(look under "PhoneGap High-Level Application Architecture" heading)

(in phonegap) Specific application architectures are going to differ on a case-by-case basis, however most data-driven applications employ the following basic architecture. The PhoneGap application acts as a client for the user to interact with. The PhoneGap client communicates with an application server to receive data. The application server handles business logic and communicates with a back-end data repository.

Cordova API allows user to create and work with SQLite database in client side.

If you want to know more about Phonegap technology you can refer to followings links which will be helpful,

1 Phonegap-vs-titanium

2 Cordova API

3 Phonegap tutorial

4 Phoengap tutorial