Should I Build An App using PhoneGap?

** UPDATE as of September 2023: Consider this article as archived for posterity. I can no longer recommend Cordova/PhoneGap for developing most mobile applications. **

You've came up with an idea for an app, and you've landed on PhoneGap (built with Cordova) as your desired platform for developing your app. Hey, that rhymed! Let me give you some pros and cons of this platform for development so that you can decide whether to continue working with PhoneGap or to use another platform that is better suited to your end goal; one of the worst feelings while developing a product is developing a product in one lanuage and/or platform only to find out that ultimately it can't deliver the results you want and/or need and now you have to switch to another platform and/or language.

Pros of using PhoneGap

1. If you're familiar with development using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you'll feel right at home with PhoneGap as the program will use features from JavaScript you're familiar with and you can import libraries that you're familiar with such as jQuery, p5.js, etc. PhoneGap is great for HTML5 based games.
2. If you don't need to be able to customize native device functionality, you're good to go. PhoneGap's JavaScript wrapper provides access to a ton of native device capabilities including Accelerometer, Camera, Geolocation, Notifications, Media, etc. For a full list of features you can access, check out the Cordova Plugin API documentation.
3. You don't need to be good at using a terminal to build and test your apps. The PhoneGap team provides a PhoneGap desktop app for testing your app. You can use this app in conjunction with the PhoneGap developer app to test your app on Android. If you like to use the terminal, you can run the PhoneGap CLI, as well. The iOS PhoneGap developer app is no longer available. But, you can still run it by following this blog post.

Cons of using PhoneGap

1. You won't be able to target new features of a targeted device until PhoneGap supports it. If you need access to the latest features of your target device, you will want to consider writing your application in the native language supported by the device i.e. Swift for iOS, Java for Android, etc.
2. If you're unfamiliar with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (or brand new to programming in general), you may find it difficult to build your first PhoneGap app. But, don't be disparraiged by this! If you don't want to learn how to program, you can use a service such as Appery.io to create an app with little to no experience in programming at all.
3. If you are capable of visualizing how a layout should be and applying that directly to CSS to create your layout, you'll find PhoneGap a breeze. There are tools available for prototyping online such as Invision. There are drag and drop solution is for HTML and CSS that you can use in conjunction with your new PhoneGap app.
4. If you think of any more, please email me at marcus.parsons@gmail.com.

Let's Get To It

If you're still thinking, "PhoneGap is definitely suited for what I want to build", then go ahead and head to the Get Started page on PhoneGap's official website. From there, if you want an easy to use experience, just download the PhoneGap Desktop App for your OS (Windows or Mac), or if you're command line savvy, use the Node package manager to install the PhoneGap CLI although I would highly recommend using the desktop app in addition to the CLI.

If you've downloaded and installed the PhoneGap Desktop App, run through some examples by following the Get Started guide and creating a few apps.

In the next article, I will provide a walkthrough on how I debug and test my apps and then publish an app to the iOS App Store or Google Play.