What is the difference of native packaging between Sencha touch2 and PhoneGap?
Many people use PhoneGap to natively package app based on Sencha touch, but I find that Sencha touch 2 has a new feature of native packaging.
So which type of native package is better in Performance, scalability, functionality, maturity, etc. ?
How do you choose?
PhoneGap is a middle-platform which is able to access some native APIs on many platforms and its interface language is Javascript. This means that PhoneGap is able to work with many cross-platform mobile web frameworks, such as: Sencha Touch, Titanium, jQuery Mobile, etc.
Sencha Touch 2 also provides a few native APIs (currently available on iOS, Android) through its SDK.
If you are not going to use any native APIs, then they don't have any major differences on performance and functionality as the only work done is just to wrap your Javascript code into a webview native component on corresponding device.
Lastly, the 2 main differences are:
I had the same questions, I agree it's a real mess at first glance. Here is a very good article that "clears up confusion" quite well.
To quote the gist of the article:
Sencha Touch (and jQuery Mobile) are mobile web frameworks. You can use these technologies to create web-based, mobile apps. They don’t have access to any native API’s.
You can use Sencha Touch and jQuery Mobile inside both PhoneGap and Titanium. If you decide your html/js is cool as a native app too, you can use either PhoneGap or Titanium to wrap a browser around your app and put it in the app store or marketplace. This is where, I think, the confusion comes. Putting your Sencha Touch or jQuery Mobile apps in a native wrapper doesn’t make it a native app. It makes it appear as if it is a native app. You might get some extra functionality from PhoneGap or Titanium API’s, but it’s still not necessarily a ‘native’ app. It’s a web app running locally on the device. It’s a great way to use web technologies inside a native-like area.
The difference is that Sencha Touch allows you to build native iOS-Applications even on Windows, whereas PhoneGap 'only' bundles your HTML files into an XCode project, which further needs to be compiled on OSX for distribution/packaging.
