PG2

Preface
This book is about PhoneGap—a really cool technology that allows you to build
native mobile applications for multiple mobile device platforms using standard
web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I’d been looking at
PhoneGap for several years, and when I finally got a chance to start working with
it, I quickly found it to be a really simple and compelling way to build a single
application that can run across multiple device platforms.
I knew Java from my work at RIM and from building Android applications. I’d
poked around at Objective-C for iOS development and even did some work for
Windows Mobile using Visual Basic. The world, however, is no longer focusing
on applications for single mobile platforms but instead expects that mobile applications
are available simultaneously for all popular mobile device platforms.
PhoneGap helps solve that particular problem.
This book is for web developers who want to learn how to leverage the capabilities
of the PhoneGap framework. It assumes you already know how to build web applications
and are looking to understand the additional capabilities PhoneGap provides.
The book highlights the PhoneGap API capabilities and how to use the tools
provided with PhoneGap.
To understand the topics covered in this book, you will need to have some experience
with one or more of the most popular smartphones. Some experience with
smartphone SDKs is a benefit, but I’ll show you how to install and use the native
SDKs as I discuss each supported platform.
The book is organized into three parts:
• Part I, PhoneGap: Includes a very thorough introduction to PhoneGap:
what it is, how it works, and more
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