Is there a Mobile 'Web Wrapper' Framework allowing Device Access to a Remote Site?

Question

When I first ran across PhoneGap, I was excited because I envisioned simply dropping in the URL of a mobile site and simply updating the mobile site to use the devices capabilities when available.

Alas, it seems it is not that easy.

From what I understand (and I could be incorrect), any HTML/JS access to the device's hardware is limited to local 'pages'. So essentially create a HTML/JS local 'web' app to access the 'real' mobile web app by AJAX like calls. It seems a little redundant (at least to me) when the point is to simply extend the interface an existing mobile site.

Not trying to knock PhoneGap here, just wondering if there's a similar framework that allows a remote site to access the phone's hardware directly. Or if I've missed how that can be done with PhoneGap.

(Sure, I know "allows a remote site to access the phone's hardware directly" sounds scary - but the URL is hard-coded in the app, and HTTPS could provide authenticity. Of course, security is probably why this isn't supported by PhoneGap.)

Answer 1

I may be wrong here, but you probably are trying to access device hardware capabilities through a browser, which I dont think is currently possible. There are many workarounds for this, one of which I am particularly interested in, is the possibility of using Opera Unite through the Opera mini browser on handset. This runs a webserver through the browser, and can be customized to expose any hardware functionality we want. This frankly may not be possible but is an interesting avenue for further investigation.

Answer 2

Phonegap do not allow such behaviour. This is a restriction to allow phonegap applications to be published in the appstore, i think. Maybe you can hack the phonegap source to allow it, it should be possibile, but then you're out of the appstore.