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Many people don't realize how easy it is to convert your site to a mobile app. But it is!
And it's becoming very popular in the development community so there are more and more technologies being made available to make it easier, even.
I love this idea, myself, as I started out as a web developer. Therefore, I flow in website design, it is my hobby! And I love to do it in my spare time, as I am passionate about it. Then I discovered PhoneGap. PhoneGap is a free tool. You just plop the PhoneGap file set into your development environment, and then add your web site files to a certain folder and vavoom! Your site can now be deployed to all the main mobile operating systems:
- iPhone, iPad (iOS)
- Android
- Windows Phone
- Blackberry
- Ubuntu
- Firefox OS
So, if you'd like to know more, contact me, Sandi, for a free consultation. I love hearing from new people :-).
SOME HISTORY:
When PhoneGap first came out, it was free and caught on very quickly (and it still is free!). Then Adobe obtained it from PhoneGap in October 2011¹, and it is unclear whether they bought it or it was donated. As part of the deal, PhoneGap's creators made Adobe promise to always leave PhoneGap to be a free tool. Adobe did make that promise... and then took PhoneGap and renamed it to "Cordova". In October of 2012, Adobe gave the framework over to Apache Incubator in order for it to become a fully accepted project governed by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). So now Cordova is Apache's version.
From the PhoneGap site:
Q: What is the difference between PhoneGap and Cordova?
A: In October 2011, PhoneGap was donated to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under the name Apache Cordova. Through the ASF, future PhoneGap development will ensure open stewardship of the project. It will remain free and open source under the Apache License, Version 2.0.
PhoneGap is an open source distribution of Cordova. Think about Cordova’s relationship to PhoneGap like WebKit’s relationship to Safari or Chrome.
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¹ "Adobe Is Distributing Cordova under the PhoneGap Brand", http://www.infoq.com/news/2012/03/Adobe-Cordova-PhoneGap
This article is duplicated at "Converting Your Site to a Mobile App".