In the previous post I had written about some of the challenges faced during mobile app development. The following lists some of the solutions implemented for overcoming the challenges:

  • Choose technology
    • Development team can choose between commonly used web technologies, native languages or a combination of both when developing the application
    • Ability to use third party libraries to enhance and streamline the development and integration process
  • Design for usability
    • Optimize the application for mobile use
    • Consistent UI design
  • Selecting devices
    • Consider range of devices that will be supported
    • Cross platform development
  • Conserving memory and power
    • Ability to balance application functionality between client and server to enhance application performance and reduce system loads

HTML5 is a critical step for mobile web application development towards providing a rich application performance. Offline support, canvas and video, GeoLocation API and advance API are some of the key elements. Hybrid application frameworks also rely on HTML5 features. iPhone, Android, Nokia are all based on open source Webkit browser engine. Windows Mobile and Blackberry do not use the Webkit. HTML5 capabilities are available in Windows Mobile through Google Gears plug-in. So have you started exploring HTML5?

~ Ramya