Over a year later, still not one app pumped out. Which brings us to a new app called Big 5. There are actually two apps on the net, Big 5 and PhoneGap, that work the same although Big 5 has moved further along in development. It is a shell developed in Objective-C that allows you to design your app in HTML and CSS (along with images, of course), then add animation and functionality with JavaScript. Pop in your app title and logo, and Bam... you have yourself a nice little iPhone app.
Why is this better than a regular webapp? Using the shell, you can call on the iPhone API, utilizing features such as the camera, photo album, vibration, accelerometer, and GPS. Yes, you can use JavaScript to open up the camera, take a snapshot, and upload to a website via an AJAX call. The other benefit is to be able to have your app hosted in the AppStore for more publicity and easier access. Even though you can add an icon on your iPhone desktop that links to a web page, many people are more familiar with the AppStore. Now that I think about it, it would be nice to add something similar to an AppStore but for web apps.
The only limitation is the fact that you must compile your HTML pages into the app. If you run the JS functions externally, there is a security error. What you can do is call iFrames that link to external pages as well as AJAX calls.
Official Big 5 Site
Currently the API features include access to:
- Acceleration
- Geo Location
- Camera and Images
- Database
- Vibration
Some features that would be nice to add is:
- Notifications
- Contacts
2 comments:
PhoneGap has all the same features as BigFive --in fact if you look at the BigFive codbase it still has artifacts from PhoneGap. =/
They are functionally equiv but PhoneGap has a more liberal license.
This is true. I had actually ran into PhoneGap initially but at the time it didn't have some of the features working, such as the camera and photo library.
There seems to be a lot of work going on with PhoneGap that I am excited to see. But if you were looking for a framework to start pushing out a web app right immediately, Big5 was the way to go, for at least that week.
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