PhoneGap Essentials: Building Cross-Platform Mobile Apps

PhoneGap is Adobe’s distribution of the free and open source framework (originally developed by Nitobi) that is now also available from the Apache Foundation as Apache Cordova™. Using PhoneGap, developers can build native mobile apps using standard HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS, and then deploy those apps to every leading mobile platform with little or no recoding. Up to now, though, PhoneGap was lacking complete, practical documentation. PhoneGap Essentials fills that void: It’s the first concise, yet complete, tutorial for succeeding with PhoneGap in real-world development.

Experienced mobile developer John M. Wargo thoroughly introduces the PhoneGap platform, explaining what it is, what it does, and how it works. He then guides you through configuring PhoneGap environments—creating complete mobile apps—and building them for the Google Android™, Samsung bada, BlackBerry® devices, Apple® iOS, Symbian™ OS, and Windows® Phone. Through realistic examples, you’ll master key PhoneGap APIs for everything from GPS to the file system, contacts to camera, device to events, and more. Wargo also demonstrates how to take full advantage of PhoneGap Build, PhoneGap’s cloud-based packaging utility.

Coverage includes

• The anatomy of a PhoneGap application (what makes an application a PhoneGap application)
• Understanding the impact of cross-platform development issues
• Exploring the entire PhoneGap development process, including testing and debugging
• Expanding PhoneGap’s capabilities with third-party development tools and plug-ins
• Building cross-platform apps that use the device camera, compass, accelerometer, and other hardware
• Reading from and writing to the contacts database and the device file system
• Installing tools needed to develop PhoneGap apps for Android, bada, BlackBerry, iOS, Symbian, and Windows Phone
• Reacting to events and notifying users
• Using the Media API to record and play media files
• Building for multiple platforms simultaneously using PhoneGap Build 

Downloadable code projects, additional information, and errata are available at phonegapessentials.com.

John M. Wargo has more than twenty years of experience designing and developing enterprise applications with a focus on collaboration and process automation. John has spent the last five years focusing on mobile development having worked for Research In Motion and authored BlackBerry Development Fundamentals (Addison-Wesley, 2010; www.bbdevfundamentals.com) and a series of articles on mobile development for The View (www.eview.com). He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, delivering sessions on mobile development and analysis of mobile industry trends. In his current role, he is a practice manager in AT&T’s Advanced Mobile Applications Practice, specializing in mobile application platforms and frameworks, and helping customers realize their mobile initiatives.