PhoneGap and jQuery Mobile

Smartphone Apps the simple way

We’ve recently released the mobile registration apps for StreetGames so thought we’d write a quick post on the technology we used to produce the apps. During the project we developed a mobile browser friendly website and apps, for iPhone and Android.

The apps enable Streetgames coaches to register the attendance of the participants at their doorstep sports clubs. These might take place in parks, leisure centres or anywhere with an open space big enough for sports. This meant that using desktop systems or paper were impractical or too cumbersome to rely on the data.

Having a mobile applications seemed like the simplest solution. This meant that coaches could login at the start of a session, quickly pull up a list of participants and mark attendance. The data could be stored, analysed and reused before the session has even ended! StreetGames were also keen to embed scanning functionality into the applications so that coaches could scan a barcode on the membership card of each participant to register their attendance.

PhoneGap

To reduce costs and delivery times we opted to use PhoneGap to develop the applications. PhoneGap is a free and open source framework that allows you to create mobile apps using standardised web APIs. Essentially, from our perspective, what this meant was that we could build the core of the application once and then with a little tweaking deploy to iPhone, Android and other handsets.

PhoneGap is now a well established and respected method of developing mobile applications. It’s been used by the BBC, exFM and a whole host of other app developers.

jQuery Mobile

To increase the speed of developing the user interface we opted to use jQuery Mobile. Using HTML5 and built on top of jQuery and jQuery UI, jQuery mobile offers a user interface system for all popular mobile device platforms including iPhone and android. Its lightweight code is built with progressive enhancement, and has a flexible, easily themeable design.

Coupled with PhoneGap, jQuery mobile helped us develop an elegant, professional mobile application for a fraction of the cost of developing native apps for each handset separately.

iPhone and Android

The StreetGames Mobile registration apps for Android and iPhone are available from the Apple and Google app stores now.

For more information about how 1UP could help you develop an iPhone, Android, Backberry or Windows Mobile app get in touch now.