Reviews for Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript: Making App Store Apps Without Objective-C or Cocoa

1. Excellent book, guiding you through the process of app creation without C/Cocoa

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, May 12nd, 2010

   Having spent the past year learning HTML, CSS, JavaScript/jQuery, PHP and MySQL, when I came up with an idea for a smartphone app I was a bit daunted by the idea of learning not one, but at least three different programming languages in order to make my app work on the major smartphone platforms.
   
   However, this book teaches you how to create apps using web scripting languages and then compile them into Object C using PhoneGap so that you can package your apps for sale in iTunes. PhoneGap offers this same functionality for several other platforms, too. The book is brief and if you have any experience coding dynamic websites, you will get through the examples in no time. The real areas this book stands out are 1) showing you how to add distinctive iPhone styling and gloss to your apps and 2) guiding you through the less-than-intuitive process of compiling them with PhoneGap.
   
   All in all, it's a very clearly written book and all you need to create native C apps without knowing a single line of C.

2. Inspiring

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, April 12nd, 2010

   As HTML5 applications become ever more present for web and mobile, this book provides great inspiration. The detailed CSS and markup samples ensure you achieve that all important iPhone friendly look. And coverage of Phonegap gives confidence that using HTML has the flexibility to produce App Store deployable results.

3. Excellent book for experienced developers

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, March 12th, 2010

   The iPhone only accounts for about 15% of the mobile market, but seemingly about 90% of the hype. The world and his wife wants to develop apps for it, but any developer from the non-Mac world hits an immediate stumbling block. Well two actually. You need a Mac to write iPhone apps, and you need to use Objective C. There aren't any quick ways around it, or so I thought until I stumbled upon this little treasure.
   
   With the aid of this book, and some free third party tools (PhoneGap in particular) you will be able to develop web apps to work on the iPhone and then convert them to full blown iPhone apps which can be submitted to Apple. Also, and this is the big plus point to the techniques described here, you will have a web app which can easily be deployed to a lot of the countless other mobile technologies out there (ie the other 85%).
   
   After a brief, and completely unnecessary, chapter describing HTML, CSS and Javascript, you are shown how to develop a web app suitible for the iPhone, using the above technologies. jQuery is also used, and if you haven't yet got to grips with that, then this will give you all the incentive you need. If you don't know the above three technologies, don't expect this book to teach you them. It is less than 200 pages long.
   
   Once your web app is complete, you are shown how to convert it to an iphone app using Phonegap, which is a piece of Middleware which enables deployment over a variety of platforms. Admitedly I haven't tested it on anything but an iPhone app, but it certainly worked for that.
   
   So are there any limitations using this technique? Well, the only real limitation is that graphics don't perform very well, so you won't be able to write a decent game on it. However, for the more data-orientated apps, the technique works fine. This really is a decent middle ground between Objective C and skills you already know. If you haven't got the time to spend getting expert on Objective C, then this will at least allow you to come to the party.