what can you do with native iPhone development and you can't using phoneGap?

Question

I am trying to understand how powerful is really phonegap. Can I also create iPad apps using phoneGap?

Answer 1

There are a lot of things that you can do with native development that you cannot do with PhoneGap. It would take a few volumes to do a full comparison.

That said, there are also things you can do with PhoneGap that you can't do with Native Development. The most important of which is supporting multiple platforms with a single code base.

Both native development and cross-platform tools (PhoneGap, Adobe AIR, Titanium) have their place. There may be times that you need the power and precision of native development (intense graphics, etc), and there may be times when you need the power and cross-platform features of PhoneGap.

I've said on here before, I am a lone developer with a need to develop applications for multiple platforms. I do not have the time to try to maintain an App for iOS, Android, and Blackberry. PhoneGap and the other choices are ideal for my situation. I am not writing games or other graphically intense games. I am not doing anything processor intensive nor do I need to talk directly to hardware through sockets. I am writing enterprise applications to support my end users on a wide variety of platforms and PhoneGap and Adobe AIR are exactly what I need.

And, on the occasion that either PhoneGap or AIR cannot do what I need out-of-the-box, in many cases I could write a custom plugin or extension in native code to hook into my app. Of course, I would have to write the plugin/extension separately for each platform, but that is leaps-and-bounds easier than having to write the whole application for each platform.

Ultimately, it depends on what you need to do. If you cannot accomplish what you need to accomplish with a cross-platform tool, then don't use it. If you only care about supporting one platform (and are sure you will never need to support others), then maybe native is for you (not that you can't use PhoneGap to develop for just one platform). If you are an elitist fanboy then native might also be for you. It's also possible you have more time than sense. Whatever your reason, use what meets your needs.

For me, I cannot imagine any application I would need to write for my work that would require me to write a native application without using one of the cross-platform tools. So for me it is PhoneGap and/or Adobe AIR all the way.

Oh, and Yes, you can write iPad applications with PhoneGap.