20 July 2010, 10:37

Symbian integrates free PhoneGap web framework

Symbian PhoneGap Given the multitude of mobile platforms, web applications gain special appeal: they allow the same software to be used on different devices without much effort. However, they can only compete with native applications if they can utilise the hardware in the same way.

The free PhoneGap framework, which has now also been integrated into Symbian 3, aims at making this possible. It offers GPS, accelerometer, camera and orientation sensor interfaces as well as a connection to the local contact database. The framework provides these functions via JavaScript classes developers can integrate in their web applications.

PhoneGap wrappers for iOS, Android, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry generate native programs from the web applications, while a wrapper for WebOS generates only an installation package. Similarly, the Symbian variant creates a widget for the Web Runtime environment (WRT).

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