Dashcode understanding

Question

I am new in iOS development and I am totally confused about Dashcode.

1. Why Dashcode is useful?
2. What is difference between Dashcode vs Xcode.
3. What is advantages and disadvantages of Dashcode as a compared to Xcode?
4. Is XML or JSON parsing is possible in Dashcode?
5. What is a Widget? I am so confused with the word widget.

Answer 1

Further to @NJones answer. Dashcode will allow you to develop HTML5/CSS/JS applications which can be deployed as widgets under the OSX dashboard or to develop browser client based applications that can be run on Safari/Mobile-Safari and other compliant HTML5/CSS browsers (chrome, firefox) and IE9 (I think).

There are projects such as PhoneGap (yes, http://www.phonegap.com) that provide additional libraries to streamline cross platform development. Depending on the complexity of your application true write-once cross mobile platform deployment can be challenging