The question has been coming up a lot lately: how can we build iPhone apps using the familiar medium of HTML and JavaScript? Already there are several options available to us, including the popular open source PhoneGap framework from Nitobi. Alexander Voloshyn wanted to take a stab at solving the problem too – the result of which was NimbleKit. His approach was more of a purpose-built framework specifically for iPhone than a general-purpose solution that could be applied to multiple devices. He’s also packaged his solution up with short-turnaround support all for just $99. I asked him some questions about NimbleKit by email. Here is our conversation:
Q. Tell me about the NimbleKit project. What problem are you solving?
There many people who have great ideas of iPhone applications but simply don’t know Objective-C, with NimbleKit it is easy to create own applications using just javascript and HTML. For those who know Objective-C NimbleKit is a huge time saver.
Q. What types of apps are best suited? Could you write a game? What are the limitations?
With NimbleKit it is possible to write wide range of applications, we can display text or image information, play audio, navigate between pages, read files and request any data from internet, interface elements have javascript callbacks to provide interactivity of interface, so to answer your question practically any application can be written using NimbleKit.
Unfortunately applications which use complicated drawing and OpenGL ES are not supported which means no complicated games, but of course you can do simple games on javascript using AJAX.
Q. What level of Objective-C knowledge is required to build a NimbleKit app?
None. However in version 2.0 we plan to give possibility to mix javascript and Objective-C, this way actually practically anything will be possible including OpenGL ES and WebKit mix.
Q. Are there any released apps or projects in the works now that use the framework?
NimbleKit is still very new so nothing yet in app store released, however we understand it is important for our customers to know they can release their apps without any problem, so we develop couple apps to release soon.
Q. Do you anticipate any problems having apps accepted into the App store?
Should not be, everything NimbleKit uses is allowed by Apple. However NimbleKit based on HTML and user may expect to load all app’s content from internet, but doing this will cause problems, most likely Apple won’t approve it because once it’s approved app’s content may change to adult or similar.
Q. Do you have any plans to port the library to non-iPhone platforms?
The library takes all advantages of it’s platform and should not exclude or complicate some features because it is required to be compatible. If we decide to make SDK for another platform we will make it from scratch using all it’s capabilities.
Q. How do you compare your framework to ones such as PhoneGap, Nemo, or Rhomobile?
Compare to similar frameworks NimbleKit has huge advantage in features, documentation, support and ease of use, only NimbleKit can provide you with working application in 3 clicks.
Also there is a big difference in architecture, NimbleKit made the way it can be extended to implement practically any feature, which is not possible with other frameworks.
Q. Right now you’re selling licenses for $99. What level of support do users get for that? Any other perks?
All general questions answered usually within 1 hour. For registered users we provide code level support. Also mailing list available and forum (launches 29 of May). All users can request any features, however registered users get their requests fulfilled first including personal pre-released patches available next day after problem appeared.
Free 30-day trials are available from the NimbleKit website.
