Comparison between Corona, Phonegap, Titanium

Question

I am a web developer and I want to move my web products to iPhone. One of the products is like Google Maps: show map on the phone screen, you can drag or resize the map and view some information that we add to the map.

I know there are some technologies that enables you to use HTML, CSS and Javascript to develop native iPhone apps. I've identified a few:

• Ansca Mobile
• PhoneGap
• Appcelerator

Are there other, similar products? What are the differences between them? Which should I choose?

Answer 1

Rhomobile Rhodes (http://rhomobile.com/products/rhodes) is very similar in approach to PhoneGap, but is the only framework with:

1. a Model View Controller pattern (as most web frameworks provide)
2. an Object Relational Manager
3. support for all popular smartphones (including Windows Phone 7)
4. a hosted development service (not just hosted build): http://rhohub.com
5. a full debugger and SDK-less emulator in the RhoStudio IDE
6. support for synchronized offline data

Answer 2

For anybody interested in Titanium i must say that they don't have a very good documentation some classes, properties, methods are missing. But a lot is "documented" in their sample app the KitchenSink so it is not THAT bad.

Answer 3

I have been working with Titanium for over a week now and feel like I have a good feel about its weakness.

1) If you hoping you use the same code on multiple platforms good luck! You'll see something like backgroundGradient and be amazed until you find out android version doesn't support it. Then have to revert to using a gradient image, might as well use it for both versions to make the code easier right?

2) A lot of weird behaviors, on the Titanium android sdk you need to understand what a "heavy" window is just to get the back button to work, or even better orientation event tracking. This isn't how the android platform really is, its just how Titanium tries to make their API work.

3) Your thrown in the dark, Things will crash and you have to start to comment code and then when you find it, never use it. There are certain obvious bugs, like orientation and percents on android that have been a problem for over six months.

4) Bugs .... there are a lot of bugs and they will be reported, sit around for months, get fixed in a few days. I am surprised they even are planning to release a black berry mobile sdk when there are so many other problems with android.

5) Titanium Iphone versus Titanium Android javascript engines are completely different. On android version you can download remote javascript files, include and use libraries like mootools, jquery and so on. I was in heaven when I found this out because I didn't have to keep compiling my android app. The android apk installation process takes so long! Iphone none of that is possible, also the iphone version has a much faster javascript engine.

If you stay away from a lot of the native UI parts, i.e instead use setInterval to detect orientation changes, sticking with gradient images, forget about the back button, build your own animations, forget window header, toolbars, and dashboard. You really can make an api that works on both that doesn't require of lot of rewriting. But at that points its just as sluggish as a webapp.

So is it worth it? After all the pain, its worth every minute. You can abstract the logic and just build different UI for each rather then if elseing everywhere. Titanium lets you make fluid applications, that feel fast. You lose the powerful layout abilities of each platform but if you think simple, things can get done under a single language.

Why not a web app? On entry level market android phones its horribly slow to generate a webview and consumes a lot of memory you could be using to do more complex logic.

Answer 4

Of the solutions you mentioned, none of them appear to give you direct access to the MapKit framework introduced in OS 3.0.

As the Google Maps HTML widgets aren't nearly as good as MapKit (see Google Latitude for an example), you are probably best off developing a native Cocoa touch application, or choosing a solution you can extend to add MapKit integration. PhoneGap is extensible in this manner (it's open-source so it is by default), and some of the other solutions might be as well.

edit: Titanium now has support for MapKit

Answer 5

My understanding of PhoneGap is that they provide Javascript APIs to much of the iPhone APIs.

Titanium seems easier for a web developer background. It is a simple XML file to create a basic TabView application and then everything in the content area is controlled by HTML / JS. I also know that Titanium does provide some javascript access to some of the frameworks (particularly access to location information, the phone ID, etc).

UPDATE: Titanium added Maps API in version 0.8 of their framework.

Answer 6

You should learn objective c and program native apps. Do not rely on these things you think will make life easier. Apple has made sure the easiest way is using their native tools and language. For your 100 lines of javascript I can do the same in 3 lines of code or no code at all depending on the element. Watch some tutorials - if you understand javascript then objective c is not hard. Workarounds are miserable and apple can pull the plug on you anytime they want.