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3. STATEOFTHEART
Fromtheotherhand,webstandardsareevolving. WithHTML5wealreadycanrun
applicationoine,accesslocalstorage,playbackmultimediales,createsocketconnec-
tion(12). Thereisalsopossibilitytocreatehybridapplication-nativeapplicationwith
embeddedwebviewwhich providesuserinterface. Thisapproachgainsbenetsfrom
bothnativeandHTML5applications,howeveritaddscomplexitytoyourapplication.
Anothernativeapplicationbenetsarespeed-HTML5applicationshaveruntime
layer, theycanusesuchhardwareacceleration asGPU,theycan usemultithreading,
they get nativelook and feel justby usingnativetoolkit. AlsoHTML5applications
arelimitedinlocalstorageandlackofsourcecodeprotection.
3.2 Bridging frameworks
Despite the fact that HTML5supports many useful features for mobileapplication,
thewide range of mobile devicefeatures is still uncovered. Toenrich pureHTML5
functionalitybridgingframeworkscanbeused(13). Theygiveabilitytoaccessnative
functionalitiesbyexposingthem toJavaScript. Bridgingframeworks encapsulateall
supported native functionality and provide JavaScript APIs for accessing them, so
developerscanconcentrateonlyonwrittingcodeusingHTML,CSSandJavaScript.
3.2.1 PhoneGap
PhoneGap (14) is open source mobile development framework developed by Nitobi
Software. Framework uses HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Framework creates native
WebView-controllerandallapplicationlogicisexecutedinsidethiscontroller. Great
thingaboutthisframeworkispluginsupport,sobasicallyanyphonefunctionsupport
canbeadded. PhoneGapsupportsallmajormobileplatformsincludingiOs,Android,
Blackberry,WindowsPhone.
Figure 3.1shows Android device features, from which Android version they are
supported and iftheycanbeaccessed bydeviceWebView. From thetableit isseen
thatbridgingframeworksgainbenetsfromHTML5featureslikegeolocationandlocal
storage,whicharesupportedbylayoutengine. Somefeatures,mostlyhardwarerelated,
stillrequireexposingbybridgingframework.
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