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Homer
Homer

Reputation: 7806

Difference between jQuery Mobile and PhoneGap

jQuery Mobile and PhoneGap both appear to be targeting cross-browser mobile development based on HTML5, but what are the major differences between the two?

What are the Pros and Cons of each framework?

Why would you choose one over the over?

Upvotes: 11

Views: 5940

Answers (4)

Leon
Leon

Reputation: 4532

JQM is just a javascript framework, gives you some UI controls, animations and manages page navigation for you.

It's still a javascript webpage, so you don't actually have anything compiled in the end. Because of this your users access it using their BROWSER pointing to a URL, just like a normal website (only those are called Web-Apps in iOS language).

PhoneGap is just a Native project (written for all major Mobile hardware, like iOS, Android, BB, WP7, etc...) that wraps a WebView control (basically a browser window) inside an app. You could include your .js/.html files, and those would be loaded LOCALLY. Another feature of PhoneGap is a jscript bridge between your code and the phone's native capabilities (like for example taking a picture from javascript!).

You end up with a NATIVE APPLICATION that you can then post to the AppStore/AndroidMarket.

Hope this helps clarifying the difference.

Upvotes: 2

Jasper
Jasper

Reputation: 76003

The jQuery Mobile documentation has a page about making an app with PhoneGap and jQuery Mobile: http://jquerymobile.com/demos/1.0/docs/pages/phonegap.html

Upvotes: 1

SERPRO
SERPRO

Reputation: 10067

JQuery mobile is a javascript library for mobile broswing (mostly adapt the user-interface for better user experience on mobile devices)

Phonegap is a cross-platform development framework that provides core mobile device features to web-based mobile apps (Extracted from here)

Basically, you cannot use phonegape to take pictures from a website, but you can build an app with HTML and javascript (Phonegap) that access to some features in the mobile.

By the way you can use both in the same application: link

Upvotes: 4

Simon MacDonald
Simon MacDonald

Reputation: 23273

Simply put jQuery Mobile is a UI toolkit for building mobile web applicaitons.

PhoneGap is a JavaScript framework which allows you to access native device functionality like the camera, contacts, file system, etc. PhoneGap does not provide UI elements.

If you want to create a hybrid mobile app, one which is built using HTML5 but runs on a device like a native app, you would not choose one over the other. You'd use both.

Upvotes: 25

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