Jul 12, 2012
Best mobile application framework for an enterprise application containing a large number of views with lots of components, but a little sluggish performance on android platforms.
What is most valuable?
* It's a HTML5 mobile application framework. To be more specific, it's a combination of HTML+ CSS and JavaScript.
* Pure JavaScript API.
* Optimized for mobile.
* MVC structure support.
* Easier to port to other platforms (platforms like iOS, Android and BlackBerry). 90 - 95% of code is shared between different platforms.
* Can distribute the application with the interference of any app store.
* Extensive and well arranged API.
* Rich, customizable, and nearly native UI elements (list view, tab bar, button). All these can be customized with css.
* Full touch support for mobile browsers, with handling of touch events such as swipe, tap, and long press.
* Native packaging support for android and iOS.
* Local storage support.
* Data binding support.
* Offline support.
* Code can be written using any operating system and can be tested using a web server.
* Applications can be tested on chrome, safari, and IE10.
What needs improvement?
* Scrolling needs some serious tweaking, specifically for android. There is a huge time lag while scrolling through a list.
* Lacks full access to native hardware, but if you want access to more hardware then you will have to combine your sencha application with PhoneGap.
* No support for blackberry. The sencha sdk beta tools provide support for native packaging for only android and iOS (even their team says they haven't tested much on blackberry).
* It's still in its developing phase and may take a while for it to fully mature.
* Animations run slower.
* No support for windows phone as well.
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
