I've used PhoneGap. There is a huge conflation of "feeling native" and the "native controls" aspect of PhoneGap's features. Can you access the camera on a phone using PhoneGap? Sure, but you know those apps you use every day? They are polished and you can't polish with PhoneGap. Scrolling is snappy, navigation doesn't lag, etc. etc.

But you're dealing with trade-offs unless you have unlimited resources. If you want an iOS, Android and web app as soon as possible with a decent UI on a limited budget, PhoneGap is hard to compete with. If you want the slickest possible iOS UI, native is likely the way to go but it costs significantly more resources if you want to support other platforms as well. You're not getting anything for free and you have to decide what you want to spend your resources on.

Sure, I'm not disputing tradeoffs.

> If you want an iOS, Android and web app as soon as possible with a decent UI on a limited budget,

Your chances of business/users/engagement success quickly dwindle if that's the rationale.

So how would you rate a PhoneGap UX compared to a native UX? I agree the latter is better but I don't see the former as significantly worse. If you have limited resources, you've usually got the choice between supporting multiple platforms with a decent UX or a limited number of platforms with a great UX.

Having an app that isn't "significantly worse" can be the difference of having 5,000 or 1 million users. While it's impossible to prove, there is loads of evidence to suggest even just 200ms of UI delay can cause UX problems. [0]

Your comment does bring up a good point however, I've struggled to prove any of this with any scientific manner. I wish there was, because it would selling native solutions so much easier. The only proof really is the fact that the most downloaded apps in the world all use native, and many (FB and LI come to my mind) tried the hybrid solution and it failed miserably.[1][2]

[0] - http://www.nngroup.com/articles/response-times-3-important-l...

[1] - http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/23/3262782/facebook-for-ios-n...

[2] - http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/17/linkedin-mobile-web-breaku...

Thanks, interesting links.

Obviously I'm not going to advocate apps that have 200ms delays no matter what framework you use. It's also possible to write laggy and bad native UIs as well.

Was the Facebook app really a failure that made the difference between 5000 and 1 million users? I think Facebook is an example of a company that has unlimited resources to throw at app development and can afford to spend a lot for even a little better anyways.

My only point is that writing native apps for multiple platforms does not come for free. While usually better than hybrid apps, the development costs need to be considered.

If you have limited resources perhaps supporting multiple platforms from the start isn't a good idea.

One well done app on a big platform may be much better than three decent/acceptable apps on three big platforms.

Yes, it depends on the app if it's worth it.

You need to consider that developing two native apps is probably twice the cost of developing one cross-platform app for two platforms.

I think developers are overly aware of the differences between native and non-native apps, and overestimate how much a casual app user cares about a native experience to be honest. I'd love to implement native experiences for all apps I write but I have to take budgets into account.

> I think developers are overly aware of the differences between native and non-native apps, and overestimate how much a casual app user cares about a native experience to be honest.

I would expect the opposite. They may not be able to put a name to the issues or even describe them, but I'd expect average people to show a clear preference for native apps basically every time in a side by side test.

I think developers tend to underestimate how important good UI responsiveness and feel is.

Why couldn't you use RubyMotion?