Phonegap Vs native iOS/Android development in 2014 [closed]

Question

I'm a web developer that is new to mobile app development and need to start a project asap. Despite researching for the last few weeks, (I have listed what I've done so far at the bottom of this post) I still have not decided between Phonegap or native (for iOS/Android only). Googling “Phonegap vs native” and the like seems to give results with a fairly even split, but there seems no doubt that native will give a faster / better end result, but at the expense of having to learn so many new things in a short timeframe.

One common thing cited about Phonegap is that is runs slowly – but I have also read that since V3 it now runs much faster – is this the case?

The app I need to build is really pretty much like a mobile static site (but the customer insists it must be an app) – just text and a few images and some PDFs. There will be new content added like news, so I was thinking rather than release a new app version for each new item, the app will fetch new data from a web API (JSON or XML) and finally a requirement for push notifications.

There will be no need to access the camera, GPS or any other hardware (bar the file system to cache images/PDFs).

I've looked at similar apps (the competition) and they all appear to make extensive use of web views, which might suggest they were made with Phonegap (or would it?).

So my question is, given the simple type of app I need to do, would there be a big benefit in going native for this, or would Phonegap (latest version) work just as well. Or on the other hand, since it is a simple app, would it be easy to do (i.e. from zero to both app stores in 10 weeks) in native?

I do have a mac with ADT/Xcode installed so that is not a factor in the choice.

My research so far.

Followed the Android getting started to here http://developer.android.com/training/basics/actionbar/styling.html but got lost with the tabs

Then got a book, SAMS teach yourself android in 24 hours, on about hour 6

Followed iOS to here https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/referencelibrary/GettingStarted/RoadMapiOS/ThirdTutorial.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40011343-CH10-SW1

Several Phonegap tutorials such as http://coenraets.org/blog/phonegap-tutorial/ but all seemed to have issues getting them to work as is.

Answer 1

Clearly native has some benefits over the web frameworks like phonegap. But the thing is what you want & need? If you want a quick solution then phonegap is best for cross platform. You can do it in easy way for all common platforms. But if you want your app to be fast & efficient, of course native has it's benefits.

Given your requirements, phonegap could be better to serve your purpose. You can continue with same code, and exact same design for all platforms. Not only for ios and android, but also with windows phone, amazon fireos etc.

One of the thing is that there are thousands of app building in phonegap these days, so it can be told that it meets with the expectation to a certain extent. Phonegap is efficient enough to fill these apps' terms. With proper use of frameworks like sencha, jquery mobile, kendo UI and many more phonegap can be highly efficient.

I don't think it's possible for anyone to tell you that if the app could be completed in 10 weeks in native apps or not. I would go for phonegap to continue with same design and same code. It would be easy to make change in the app if needed in future. But decision have to be yours based on the issues and requirements :)