Beginning iPhone and iPad Web Apps: Scripting with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript

Chapter 15. A Better Handling of Client-Side Data Storage

For years, when data needed to be stored on the client to enhance a page or actually allow it to work properly, developers could rely only on cookies. Although this has worked well for various applications, cookies have limitations that make them somewhat unfit for developing complex functionality. Size limits are not a problem when storing an identifier or some information from a session—such as shopping cart data—but they easily become impossible to handle when dealing with more complex tasks, such as calendar synchronization.

This doesn't mean client-side storage isn't a profitable practice: limiting the amount of data transitioning between the client and the server naturally makes a ...