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Java – the Big Daddy of Mobile Apps

Long before people started dreaming about smartphones and full touchscreen devices, and long before Steve Jobs, in his iconic Apple keynote presentation, revealed the iPhone, the idea of a great mobile phone was confined to the high end devices presented by Nokia.

It was a time when Nokia had defined its supremacy in the world of mobile phones and there was no clear line of demarcation between feature phones and smartphones. The smartest phones that people could think of belonged to the Nokia N series. There was a time when Nokia's flagship N95 was advertised with the tagline "is this what computers have become?" Today, we have come a long way from that time but it's still cannot be denied that the first romance between phones and applications were brought about by Nokia.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the World of mobile applications was ushered in because of Java period there might be different manifestations and avatars of Java that made it possible. Let's look at a few of these instances where Java revolutionised mobiles.

Java Micro Edition

The Java platform micro edition or the J2ME as it is commonly abbreviated is a complete that form for development and deployment of portable code for mobile devices and microcontrollers. It uses object-oriented Java programming and it was acquired by Oracle from its creator Sun Microsystems. It is interesting to know that there are more than 2.1 billion Java enabled devices.

In fact, it was a popular addition in feature phones that costed less than $200 and most of these phones run on Nokia's proprietary Symbian Series 40. It also trickled into a few advanced operating system is like Nokia Symbian Series 60, Windows CE, Windows Mobile, MeeGo and even Android.

The silver bullet for Java was when the Canadian mobility company Research In Motion (RIM) introduced its first handheld Smart device way back in 2002. This device ran an advanced version of Java micro and the series of devices became the benchmark for business mobility. We are talking about the Blackberry!

Java for applications

Jawa, as a programming language and innovation from Sun Microsystems has been immensely responsible for the increase of mobile apps. It can only be said that the first wave of mobile app development companies owe their success to Java.

When we are talking about Java applications for mobiles, we are not talking just about utility. The list of features available on Java was quite vast considering the restricted utility of phones during the mid 2000s.

Java was useful not only in creating applications with utility, like compasses, calculator, spirit levels and simple 2-D games, but also in the creation of themes and wallpapers which not only included icons and simple graphics but even transitions and small scale animations.

Conclusion

Today, we talk quite a lot about mobile app development. Mobile app development companies make quite some fortune by creating apps using advanced platforms. However, you should never be forgotten that the market for mobile applications was started off with the simple innovation from Sun Microsystems!

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Phone Gap-the Redefiner for Mobile App Development

Phone gap-the redefiner for mobile app development

Ever since the introduction of mobile applications on smartphone ecosystem is like iOS and android, the quest for developing mobile applications in a more efficient way has always been stealing the limelight of both developers and businesses alike. There are two basic schools of mobile app development: native and hybrid. 

Native apps bring the advantages like complete utilization of all the features available on the platform. Hybrid apps save a lot on time and money. Big businesses make use of native apps because they have both the temporal and monitory bandwidth to employ master developers and blast the market with a huge marketing budget. Hybrid apps however, are the cynosure of small and medium businesses.

While the bifurcation seemed convenient for a considerably long time, there was always a need to achieve a fine balance between both. What if there was a platform to develop Mobile applications that make the fullest use of native features but at the same time, bring the advantages of saving in time and money like hybrid apps? The answer lies in Phone Gap.

What is PhoneGap

Phone Gap is an open source mobile application improvement system that was created by an unknown software company called Nitobi Software. Realising the scope and potential, it was purchased by Adobe.

Without demanding special technical skills, this improvement system helps novices developers assemble complex mobile applications by using basic scripting knowledge in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. In addition, Phone Gap also provides a testing utility for web developers and designers who use the Phone Gap framework.

Phone Gap was earlier known as Apache Cordova and it was renamed by Adobe after acquisition.

There are two segments in Phone Gap that make application development possible: a JavaScript API interfaces between the native functionality and the HTML5/CSS code, and the local court which is invoked by JavaScript APIs.

Advantages of Phone Gap

As earlier discussed, the biggest advantage brought about by Phone Gap is the convergence of the advantages of native and hybrid app development. Mobile app development companies make use of this platform to save a lot on time to market and the budget involved in app development. This presented an amazing opportunity of success for both businesses and developers.

As an off shoot, it ensures that all the releases are consistent in their interface and visual aspect on all the platforms. This song is one of the most prominent issues of native app development: a business person who was always used to handling the app on the iPhone might find it different on Samsung Galaxy devices.

We have seen that all that Phone Gap requires is a basic understanding of HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. Therefore, there is no need for the company to spend a lot on specialized development talents. This can also be a boost for companies to recruit the right talent because even if you get additional projects in any one of the three elements involved, it would still be a great idea to have an in-house team.

Above everything, Phone Gap is open source which makes it a great option for start-ups who operate on a shoestring budget. Although there might be a few challenges in using Phone Gap like lack of support of plug-ins and its incompatibility with apps that demand a lot of hardware activity, it still manages to stand tall in terms of the advantages it presents.

Conclusion

It is not a thing of wonder that a lot of mobile app development companies depend on Phone Gap for their mobile app development endeavours. For all you know, the near future might hold the floodgates to a newer and efficient version of Phone Gap that can also support hardware intense apps and can enable creation of iOS apps without involving a Macintosh.