I’ve been doing a little bit of work toward getting my No-Nonsense Weather app, currently available for HP WebOS, ported so that I can release versions for other mobile platforms like iOS, Android, BlackBerry OS, and Windows Phone. Since the app is written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, this is fairly easy using various available frameworks.
I made heavy use of the jQuery framework in the app (and on this web site, and at my day job for that matter), so I figured I’d do most of the user-interface work in the jQuery Mobile framework. I already have a proof-of-concept built in the framework, which is just a surprisingly-painless port from the existing WebOS code. It has some rough edges and still needs some work, but it functions. You can see some screenshots below.
After I get it polished up and solid from the UI and basic-functionality perspectives, I’m planning to use the PhoneGap framework to access the different platforms’ location services and preference storage APIs. Once that’s working, I’ll start doing a lot of testing to make sure it works as expected on the different platforms. I’m not committing to any particular platforms yet. Since the app is free and will make me $0, I’m not interested in paying for access to the app stores, and some of the stores (I’m looking at you, Apple) are idiotically restrictive anyway.
More information as I get this better developed . . . it’s still very early at this point.
