Question posted in 
Please forgive me, I’m a newbie at mobile app development. My background is making websites with Drupal & Rails.
What I’m trying to understand is, what is the point of using Phonegap. Let’s say, for example, we wanted to recreate the eBay app using Phonegap, something where I can view listings, take a picture and list something.
If I understand correctly, to do this on Phonegap, I need to create all the pages as static HTML, add load of complicated Javascript, and then build a REST interface with a server somewhere. This is a pain.
What I don’t understand is, what is the benefit of doing it this way, vs just providing a responsive website in the ‘normal’ way? Sure, it might run a bit slower, but development will be way faster. I just don’t get it. Any clarification will be really helpful.
2
Answers
PhoneGap and similar hybrid app containers are designed to allow people to use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to write apps that are packaged as native apps (e.g., Android APK files) for distribution (e.g., via Google Play Store), that can access more native device capabilities than mobile browsers support, and that can run offline.
AFAIK, you would need to do all of that for “a responsive website” if you wanted it to run offline using HTML5 cache manifests. The REST interface would also be needed if you wanted the same back-end to be accessed by other environments (e.g., native mobile, native desktop, third-party Web sites).
Development may be way faster for you, and perhaps for others that have an equivalent skill set. There are others for which PhoneGap-style development may be of similar development speed, or conceivably faster. There are still others for whom native app development would be faster. Please do not assume that all of the world’s developers are identical to you in terms of talent and preferences.
You are certainly welcome to develop a normal mobile Web site using conventional Web development techniques, and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with doing so. And for the particular site that you are looking to develop, if you do not care about native distribution, native integration, or offline access, a hybrid container may not be that helpful to you. Just bear in mind that there are many other developers who may want to use some of those capabilities for their development, and for them, PhoneGap and kin may well be essential.
Please read my answer to this question here: Beginning with Apache Cordova
Basically, PhoneGap/Cordova allows you to create a mobile application using HTML5 and other web technologies and then package that mobile application as a native application that can be access native device functionality (like the hardware sensors, something HTML5 can’t do yet) and can be distributed via app stores.
That’s pretty much correct, except that you only need to build the pages and javascript once and can then reuse it for every mobile platform. If you wanted to make the ebay app without phonegap, you’d have to learn Android programming, build the android app, learn Objective-c, build the iOS app, learn WebWorks, build the blackberry app, etc.
Research the differences between “hybrid” apps, native apps, and mobile websites. The biggest difference is that if you just build a mobile website, you wouldn’t be able to access the camera, for example, or will have to tell people the URL to your website as opposed to letting them download the app from the app store.