Question

I am working in iPhone SDK.I have to convert from it to Crossplatform which may be either phonegap or titanium.As a iPhone Native application developer, I have some questions based on cross paltform.please consider the questions for other platforms android,etc also.I have already seen the stackoverflow Link.

1)Is it possible to get equal functionalities of all APIs which are in iPhone SDK through HTML5 and javascript?

2)If Apple releases New Version of iPhone SDK,will New APIs be included ASAP in Crossplatform?

3)If The App crashes in some situation, can I fix immediately through Device Debugging as we do in native Language?

4)The applications developed by Cross platform will be approved by Apple legaly?For example If i want to do live streaming in iphone , The restrictions have mentioned in Apple website.has it been followed by crossplatform?

5)will Application developed by cross platform take more memory?I mention the size of device build for appstore?If we develop the same through objective C,will size be reduced?

***My Conclusion is When we want to develop simple Applications for Multiple devices,crossplatform is suitable.Am I right?***I hope doing through native language(iphonensdk, Android) will avoid lot of Unnecessary things.

Answer 1

1. No.
2. If the API can be made available, it depends on how fast the creators of the framework implement it.
3. In principle, yes, as those frameworks employ a limited amount of OS capabilities to run web-technology (in most cases). This “wrapper” behaves as any native app does. For the content however the rules of the frameworks development language apply. It may be harder compared to native development to track down errors, since they must “pass the shell”. Html errors for example may produce the same error for their enclosing webview again and again, despite being different in origin.
4. Propably.
5. That’s hard to tell. It may depend on the framework. I wouldn’t worry about the code as other ressources like imagery are usually the heavier load. But it may be very well the case that those frameworks bring along imagery necessary for their UI elements, since they do not rely on OS elements entirely. Compared to a native app which comes with no extra ressources at all, a crossplatform app with the same functionality might take more memory.

As to your conclusion: You’re right. However I’d still encourage anyone to develop native applications whenever possible. Crossplatform frameworks tend to be slower at runtime and, in some cases, produce very ugly apps. I know several examples of apps which have been created with a variety of crossplatforms and I don’t like any of them. They just don’t feel right. Partly that’s due to their UI elements which don’t look and feel as you’d expect it on the platform you’re on.

The principle behind crossplatform frameworks may appear to be logical, tempting and in some cases, straight economics mandate their use. But, for the time being, I find the results far from being satisfactory and for that reason would never touch a crossplatform framework.