Preface
My introduction to the world of mobile development happened back in 2007. I was being interviewed by the user experience team at Qualcomm to join as their UX engineer while Steve Jobs was announcing the first iPhone. Several of my interviews turned into an analysis of Apple’s announcement. A day like that will leave a lasting impression upon one’s professional career. Over the next decade, I have had a chance to explore a wide range of solutions for mobile development. Always, my underlying goal with any solution was to make sure it allowed for rapid development, enabling my group to quickly test and validate new ideas and concepts.
For many of the early mobile prototypes I worked on, the user interfaces were highly customized. Rarely was there a need to simulate a device’s native component library. Occasionally, when native components were required, I could recreate them in the solution I was using at the time. Eventually, more and more of the prototypes were less customized, and more default in their design. I needed to find a solution that offered a rich component suite, because I was not interested in developing and maintaining a custom component library just for myself.
I explored using libraries like Ratchet and TopCoat on some projects. The “Intro to Mobile Development” course I taught at the University of California San Diego Extension program was based on jQuery Mobile (and PhoneGap Build). However, none of those solutions gave me the rich component library I ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access