Phonegap - What is PhoneGap? Advantages/Disadvantages

PhoneGap

History:

Earlier PhoneGap was distributed in form of project templates which are used in Xcode and Eclipse to create hybrid apps. The software was known as Nitobi Software earlier but in 2011, Adobe purchased Nitobi Software and the project was ultimately renamed as Apache Cordova. Now Adobe kept the PhoneGap name and began maintaining a fork of Apache Cordova’s code.

About:

Phonegap is a Software development framework by Adobe System which is used to develop Mobile Applications. The positive side of using PhoneGap is, you no need to have knowledge of any Mobile Development Languages. What you need to know is knowledge of WebDevlopment languages like: HTML, CSS and JScript.

PhoneGap is useful to develop Mobile App for all kinds of platforms like: iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile OS.

Apps Developed under PhoneGap:

You can check the popular Apps, developed under PhoneGap. Please check below link:

https://phonegap.com/app/

Advantages and Disadvantages:

Advantages:

PhoneGap is a cross-platform framework, you can create and app for one platform and then deploy it on various other platform.
Everyone wants to save money & time. Hiring experts is not an easy task as they may charge good amount for App development. But with PhoneGap you can hire any WebDevloper with knowledge of HTML, CSS and JScript which cost you less.
After making your first Mobile App you can apply it to publish on Google play easily. Today’s App market its very useful to make money from Mobile Apps. So if you come up with a good App you can also make money from App Store.
One of the advantages of making App is user can't find that the App they are using is made by Phonegap or HTML or any Android Application. It’s completely feels like normal Mobile Apps.
PhoneGap is an open source which means its absolutely free to use. Anyone with have minimum development knowledge can start working with PhoneGap.
Last but not least Apps are developed under PhoneGap can use features of phone like: Camera, Location, Network, Compass etc.

Disadvantages:

Since its design to develop simple applications, its unable to deliver high graphics Gaming Apps.
PhoneGap does not have sufficient amount of UI widgets. Because of this reason, the development can take more than usual.
Sometimes, the plugins in PhoneGap could be outdated. And for some features, you don't have a related plugins.
However PhoneGap has extended support to a lot of hardware feature of an OS but still, many hardware cannot be interact with PhoneGap Mobile App development technology.
In case you want to achieve the native look & feel out of your PhoneGap App, you will need to use 3rd party framework which may differ from each other in terms of quality.

So here we discussed about PhoneGap in next article we will discuss about installation and working with PhoneGap.