1. Cross Platform Mobile Applications
By Rohit Ghatol
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2. Introduction Rohit Ghatol Project Manager @ Synerzip
Associate QuickOffice Inc
GTUG Manager & Tech Next Founder
Certified Scrum Master
Corporate Trainer (Agile and Technical)
Was part of OpenSocial at Google

3. Topics Overview Understanding Mobile Apps
Cross Platform Mobile App Development
Pure HTML/JavaScript – PhoneGap
Interpreted JavaScript – Titanium Mobile
Native Mobile App Development
Hybrid Mobile App Development
Comparison between PhoneGap Vs Titanium
Conclusion
Q & A

4. Overview
The process of developing Applications for various mobile platform using common source code with little or no change to the common source.
This presentation focuses on Comparing two frameworks each taking a different approach to solve the above problem.
We will Compare PhoneGap Vs Titanium .

5. Understanding Mobile Apps

6. Reaching Mobile Users

7. 1. Mobile Features
Mostly Feature Sub Set
Complete Feature Set

8. 2. Tablet Features
Almost Complete
Feature Set
Complete Feature Set

9. 3. User Interaction
Touch based
Accelerometer
Traditional
Compass

10. e.g Layar Application

11. 4. Location aware Can be Location Aware but approximate
Location Aware and highly accurate

12. 5. Sensors Handy Camera and Voice Recording
Upcoming NFC (Near Field Communication) turning phone into Credit Card, Access Card, Business Card Exchanger

13. e.g Shopping Applications
Scan a product’s barcode to know if it has the lowest price.
If not, then navigate to a store which has the lowest price

14. 6. Push Notifications
Push Notification
Notifying the User proactively

15. Challenges in building Mobile Applications

16. 1. OS Fragmentation
Windows 7
Fragmentation

17. 2. Multiple Teams/Product
Windows 7
Multiple Teams/Products

18. 3. Uniform User Experience
Windows 7
Uniform User Experience

19. 4. Feature Fragmentation

20. Approaches to Mobile Development

21. Types of Mobile App Dev Native Mobile Apps Cross Platform Mobile Apps
Hybrid partly Native partly Cross Platform

22. Native Mobile Apps High Performance Apps
When To
When Not To
High Performance Apps
Heavy on OS and Device Features
Complex N/W comm.
Canvas based Apps
Only Few Platforms
Performance is not the main criteria
More or less Replicates Web Apps with few device feature
Standard Restful
Widget based apps
Many Platforms

23. Cross Platform Mobile Apps
When To
When Not To
Performance is not the main criteria
More or less Replicates Web Apps with few device feature
Standard Restful
Widget based apps
Many Platforms
High Performance Apps
Heavy on OS and Device Features
Complex N/W comm.
Canvas based Apps
Only Few Platforms

24. Cross Platform Mobile Apps
When To
When Not To
Time to market is critical
Saving Cost is critical

25. Hybrid Mobile Apps Fairly Simple UI Complex Backend
When To
Why To
Fairly Simple UI
Complex Backend
Quite few platforms
E.g ShareFile
Recommended way - PhoneGap Plugin
Some parts of app are common
Rest parts are different
Use Cross Platform to develop common part
Use Native to develop the weight lifting parts

26. Cross Platform Mobile App Development

27. Cross Platform Strategies
Common Source
Cross Platform Source Code
Common Platform
Mapping to Native
WEB APPLICATION
JavaScript – Java Bridge
OS – Android / iPhone UI
Platform APIs
Mapping to Native
Bridge - JavaScript – Java – Objective C
OS – Android / iPhone
Titanium Mobile
PhoneGap

28. Common Platform Approach

29. Modern Browsers
All new Smart Phones come with modern browsers, which have better support for HTML5/CSS3 specs
Mobile OS
Browser
Android
Webkit based
iPhone
BlackBerry 6.0 +
Window Phone 7
IE 7 based *
WebOS
Nokia

30. WebViews
All of these smart phones supports using these modern browsers as embedded views (aka WebViews)

31. JavaScript to native and back
All these browser engine (most common being webkit) support Javascript to talk to native code and back
Native Code
(Java/C++/ObjC)
HTML/Javascript
JSON packets

32. Hybrid Applications
HTML/Javascript application loads Google Maps and talks to the native code to gain access to GPS location
Native Code
(Java/C++/ObjC)
HTML/Javascript
GPS Location

33. UI Framework e.g jQueryMobile
Over all Architecture
HTML5/CSS3 Application
UI Framework e.g jQueryMobile
PhoneGap API
Phone Gap Bridge
Camera
GPS
SQLite
SQLite
File System
Accelerometer
Compass
etc

34. Possibilities Limitless Possibilities
Expose Camera, Accelerometer, GPS, any of the phones sensors to javascript
Instead of just building Browsed Based applications augment with more phone features

35. Development
HTML/CSS Application uses Common API exposing device features

36. Development
Sample code

37. Mapping to Native

38. Javascript Based Application
Over all Architecture
Javascript Based Application
Titanium UI API
Titanium Phone API
Titanium Framework
Window
Dialog
SQLite
SQLite
File System
Accelerometer
Compass
etc

39. Development Two API Sets One for UI * (Specific to Titanium Mobile)
Create Windows
Create Dialogs
…….
One for Phone Features
Same as PhoneGap
Access Camera
Access GPS ……

40. Development
UI API Set

41. Development
UI API Set

42. Issues Common API set across platforms is always minimum
E.g IPhone as a widget, which Android not have
Fragmentation of the API itself.
What is platform specific and not part of Common API comes in Platform specific api?

43. Mobile App Dev Frameworks
Common Platform
Mapping to Native
PhoneGap
Titanium Mobile
* Rhodes Mobile is another promising framework, but out of scope for today’s discussion

44. Compare Screens (IPhone)
PhoneGap
Titanium Mobile

45. Compare Screens (Android)
PhoneGap
Titanium Mobile

46. Open Source
BSD License
MIT License

47. PhoneGap
Only platform to support 6 Platforms

48. PhoneGap
Standards based and extended

49. PhoneGap Prerequistes
Need to be acquainted with Android, IOS, BlackBerry, WebOS
Need to be expert at HTML/Javascript or framework like GWT
Need to be acquainted with JavaScript libraries like
Jquery
script.aculo.us
Prototype
Etc
Or Ajax framework like GWT
Need different project for each platform, inject PhoneGap code in each project
PhoneGap has no IDE, use Eclipse for Android and Xcode for IPhone

50. Demo Screens - IPhone

51. Demo Screens - Android

52. PhoneGap Features

53. Challenges and Advantages
HTML based UI is the biggest Challenge as well as Advantage
Same UI can be used for Web and Mobile and even Desktop
Promising Framework
GWT – Used by Spring Roo for Enterprise Application Development
jQueryMobile – Based on legendary Jquery and now features
Multipage Template
Page Slide Transitions
Dialogs
Toolbars
Forms
Lists

54. Code Walkthrough - PhoneGap

55. Getting Started PhoneGap
Step 1: Create Android Eclipse Project

56. Getting Started PhoneGap
Step 2: Add Phone Gap Java Library

57. Getting Started PhoneGap
Step 3: Add Phone Gap Javascript and with other web app files

58. Getting Started PhoneGap
Step 4: Modify Main Activity class

59. Getting Started PhoneGap
Step 5: Extend DriodGap instead of Activity

60. Getting Started PhoneGap
Step 6: Write Javascript Code to create UI &use PhoneGap API

62. PhoneGap on XCode

64. jQueryMobile UI Development

65. jQuery Declarative UI
<!-- Main Page --> <div data-role="page" id="home"> <!-- Header of Main Page --> <div data-role="header"> <h1>AlternativeTo Home</h1> </div> <!-- Content of Main Page --> <div data-role="content"> <p>Find Alternatives To Your favourite Softwares </p> <p><a href="#search" data-role="button">Search Alternatives</a></p> <p><a href="#recent" data-role="button">Recent Alternatives</a></p>

66. jQuery Declarative UI

67. Extending PhoneGap to open more of underlying system

68. Phone Gap Extension
Javascript Code
Android Code
References -
Author – Rohit Ghatol

69. Mobile

70. Apache License
Appcelerator Titanium SDK
Titanium Module SDK
Appcelerator Titanium SDK
Titanium Module SDK
Paid Modules
Commerce Modules
Communication Modules
Analytics Module
Media Modules

71. Titanium Mobile
Currently supports only Android and IPhone platforms.

72. Titanium Mobile IPhone Android Titanium JavaScript Interpreted By
Wekit JavascriptCore
Mozilla Rhino
IPhone
Android

73. Titanium Architecture

74. Titanium Prerequistes
Need to be acquainted with Android, IOS programming
Need to know JavaScript
Use Titanium Mobile IDE to configure projects and use Text IDE to edit the code (unlike PhoneGap, there is only one project for all platforms)

75. Demo Screens - IPhone

76. Demo Screens - Android

77. Challenges and Advantages
Being Native is the biggest strength
Limited cross platform ui api is a weakness
Platform specific api leads to fragmentation within code

78. Code Walkthrough – Titanium Mobile

79. Titanium Developer IDE for Titanium Mobile and Desktop
Allows Creating Titanium Project
Allows building Android and IPhone Applications
Does not provide any Source code Editor

82. Directory Structure

83. App.js (entry point)
var tabGroup = Titanium.UI.createTabGroup(); var win1 = Titanium.UI.createWindow({ title: 'Search', url: 'search.js' }); var tab1 = Titanium.UI.createTab({ window:win1, title:'Search Alternatives’ tabGroup.addTab(tab1); tabGroup.addTab(tab2); tabGroup.open();

84. search.js (building UI)
var window = Titanium.UI.currentWindow; var search = Titanium.UI.createSearchBar({ height:43, top:0 }); var actInd = Titanium.UI.createActivityIndicator({ height:50, var tableview = Titanium.UI.createTableView({ top:50 window.add(search); window.add(tableview);

85. search.js (Ajax Call)
var xhr = Titanium.Network.createHTTPClient(); xhr.onload = function() { actInd.hide(); var doc = xhr.responseText; var json = eval('('+doc+')'); var data = []; //…. Load data in data // provide the data to table to populate the table tableview.setData(data); };

86. search.js (Event handling)
//send ajax request to fetch altrnatives for searchText function searchAlternatives(searchText){ xhr.open('GET',' xhr.send(); } //start search when user hits enter on search box search.addEventListener('return', function(e) { actInd.show(); searchAlternatives(e.value); });

87. Native Mobile App Development

88. Native App Development
Basically you need to hire experts who can
Build Android, IOS, BB, BlackBerry and Windows mobile apps
Devs should have experience to deploy apps on market
Devs should have experience on various devices
QA should know how to automate things on devices/emulator
Plan for risks if this is your companies first Mobile App deployment

89. Hybrid Mobile App Development

90. Hybrid App Development
Have Web Developers for Common UI
Have native code experts for heavy weight lifting
Use frameworks like PhoneGap Plugin Development framework to glue the above two pieces
Measure at every milestone to keep track of effect of changes
Use Automation to regress every layer

91. ShareFile Story as

92. Comparison Titanium Mobile PhoneGap 6 Platforms
Android and IPhone
Gives out native app
API is more proprietary
UI has Limitations
UI will be fast
Much better User Experience
Portal Code can not be reused
Extensions are possible
Limited support for HTML/Javascript
6 Platforms
Gives out a mobile web app
API is less proprietary
UI possibilities are unlimited
UI could be slow
User Experience will get better with enhancements
Portal Code can be reused
Extensions are possible and easy to implement
More will come out of discussion, comments are welcome

93. Conclusion Webkit is the next Virtual Machine.
Maybe Going where Java could not go
HTML 5, CSS 3 and Javascript is future,but not ready just yet
HTML 5, CSS3 and Javascript to lessen the fragmentation
HTML 5 will compete with native components

94. References Phone Gap Documentation Titanium Mobile Documentation
ShareFile Story