Available iPhone Web Application JavaScript UI Library/Frameworks

Question

I'm starting a web application that will target Mobile Safari on iPhone/iPod Touch. I'm evaluating the available client-side JavaScript/CSS libraries/frameworks that are currently out there.

These are the ones I'm currenlty aware of:

• iUI
• CiUI
• UiUIKit
• WebApp.Net
• iWebKit
• Apple's Dashcode Application - not really a standalone library/framework, but it provides/generates JavaScript, CSS, and images that conform to the native iPhone UI metaphors.

Are there any others out there? I want to make sure I'm not missing any before I make a decision. I'm only looking for client-side JavaScript/CSS solutions and building one from scratch isn't an option because of time constraints. No server-side PHP, Ruby, Python, Java, etc. solutions.

I am aware of the iPhone web applications, templates, frameworks? question that was asked, but this only mentioned iUI and UiUIKit.

Thank you

Answer 1

PhoneGap isn't exactly what you're asking about, but is something you might want to be aware of. It's a wrapper for making iPhone apps using HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

Answer 2

QuickConnectiPhone has what you are asking for. There is a custom project type for Dashcode that allows you to quickly create your app. If you then want to run it installed on an iPhone or touch you can then drop it into Xcode and compile it up.

It includes wrappers for AJAX and the SQLite database that exists within the Safari browser on the iPhone and touch.

You can get it at

http://sourceforge.net/projects/quickconnect/

More information is available at

http://tetontech.wordpress.com

Answer 3

My personal preference is jQTouch. It's a great framework to work with and includes both javascript and CSS assets to make web applications that really give the feel of native applications.

For accessing the lower level functionality of the native device, you can always wrap your HTML files, JS + CSS + jQTouch assets into a native app using something like phonegap, rhomobile or appcelerator, however, this does require a mac to compile and deploy the native application to the appstore.

Certainly most of the things I am looking at are just web applications, so jQTouch does the job nicely. Did a blog post combining my thoughts in my detail on my blog, link below:

iPhone and Android Web Application Frameworks

Answer 4

I would second jQTouch. It uses native CSS animations and behaves reasonably smoothly on my iPod Touch.

Answer 5

JQTouch is not really an app dev framework..it is a style and animation "wrapper".

QuickConnect provides start to finish app development on iphone, droid, and blackberry. The iphone is the most complete.

It can incorporate JQTouch for look and feel and is well-documented.

PhoneGap can be used in conjunction with JQTouch as well but in my experience PG documentation and instruction is harder to find.

Answer 6

I second jQTouch being a great full featured solution. But if you are just looking for a JavaScript library I'd recommend XUI. The syntax is based on jQuery but the library is tuned for mobile development.

Answer 7

Mootouch built on mootools looks great localindya.com is using it.

Answer 8

There is also jPint

Answer 9

Old question, but still relevant. Sencha (the new name of the company behind ExtJs) just released the mobile app platform Sencha Tounch for iPhone, iPod, iPad and Android: http://www.sencha.com/products/touch/

Blog post that explains the difference between jQTouch and Sencha Touch: http://9-bits.com/post/723711597/jqtouch-and-sencha-touch

Update: John Resig recently announced that the jQuery team is working on a mobile UI library. Looks promising: http://jquerymobile.com/2010/08/announcing-the-jquery-mobile-project/

Answer 10

What about "Magic": http://www.jeffmcfadden.com/projects/Magic%20Framework

Answer 11

there is also wink: http://www.winktoolkit.org