Native APIs

Before PhoneGap, there were framework solutions that optimized web page content to fit on small screens, which were the norm back then. There were still restrictions compared to native applications, especially when it came to accessing native features, among them hardware sensors. This was before the proliferation of HTML5-standard features so there was really no way of accessing them without making a native application.

A wide array of hardware sensors supported through native APIs improves the functionality of hybrid mobile applications. Using them can replace the need to create a native application; this means it can cost less to develop a hybrid application than to build a separate version for all platforms that do not share any code, since every platform uses a different programming language. Plugins that we will explore in detail in the following chapters, are the main reason why the development of PhoneGap applications has risen in popularity. There are so many other plugins...