VSW10 Building Mobile Cross-Platform Apps with HTML5 & PhoneGap

11/20/2013

1:45pm - 3:00pm

Level: Intermediate

Nick Landry

Senior Technical Evangelist

Microsoft

Write Once, Run Everywhere. How many times have we been promised true cross-platform development? HTML5 seems to be the closest we’ve ever been to writing applications once and running them on multiple mobile devices, such as iOS, Android, Windows Phone or Blackberry. This session explores the fundamentals of native vs. web apps, and how to choose the right approach for any given scenario. We then dive into mobile design demos with HTML5 and JavaScript using popular frameworks, such as jQuery UI and jQuery Mobile, and we’ll learn how to leverage PhoneGap to wrap our mobile web UI into a native smartphone or tablet app. Discover how PhoneGap exposes native device hardware like cameras, sensors, GPS and more. We’ll also discuss the pros and cons of PhoneGap-based apps, how to deal with the UI design guidelines across platforms, and learn some do’s and don’ts of cross-platform mobile development. Native mobile apps have their place, but you also need to master cross-platform techniques when the situation calls for it.

You will learn:

  • Basic principles of each mobile platform: iOS, Windows Phone, Android
  • Mobile web design with HTML5 and jQuery
  • To apply these principles to create compelling and engaging cross-platform mobile applications by wrapping HTML5 UIs with PhoneGap