FHWS Science Journal - Fakultät Informatik und Wirtschaftsinformatik

Florian Wolf, Karsten Huffstadt
The following figure shows yet again the summarized findings comparing iOS, Android and
Windows Mobile as the target platform for the deployed application. This overview does not aim to
be complete and illustrates, by way of information, the most important aspects of the analysis.
Fig. 3. Findings of the analysis
5 CONCLUSION
The intention of our research was to prove the often promised universal applicability of nativecentric
cross-platform frameworks using HTML5-techniques to develop mobile applications
running on various native platforms. In this precise case it was analyzed if the one-off source
code created by using the example of PhoneGaps is enough to deploy an application for iOS,
Android or Windows Mobile. In this context it becomes clear that we have to differentiate the
target operating systems.
In general it can be summarized that the realization of the business case could be implemented
without problems on the iOS as the leading platform. The excellent API support allowed a rapid
development and implementation.
The transition to Android was problematic and the result was an application with poor
performance and a user interface far away from the native look and feel.
A proper implementation on Windows Mobile was practically impossible to achieve. It becomes
clear that PhoneGap does not support all JavaScript functions really for cross platforms and in
case of Windows there is a high potential of failure. The poor documentation increases the
problem and does not allow a simple, uncomplicated and clearly structured implementation.
Based on these findings, the use of a native-centric cross-platform framework can only be
recommended partially. The question is whether it is possible to create an application mostly with
HTML5-techniques. Even Charland and Leroux [2011] assume that web browser are able to
support more and more API functions. In the meantime - when some specific APIs are necessary
- a small native container should be developed using the native development environment.
38 FHWS Science Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2013