HTML5 developers appMobi want to bring the definitive jQuery framework to mobile developers. Dubbed jQ.Mobi, appMobi is releasing the new HTML5 framework to the open source community today, promising that it is faster and more lightweight than existing options and will give mobile Web developers the user interface and programming functions they have been looking for.
jQ.Mobi is a JavaScript framework in the same vein as Sencha Touch, JQuery Mobile and JQTouch. Unlike those frameworks, which are built in HTML4 and rooted in Web browsers, jQ.Mobi is an HTML5 rewrite of the jQuery framework.
“With jQ.Mobi we’ve given the mobile development world an HTML5-ready jQuery,” said appMobi CTO Sam Abadir.
The release of jQ.Mobi fits well within appMobi’s vision of the future of HTML5 development. Last week, in the HTML5 Developers Wishlist for 2012, Abadir said, “We have invested heavily, for example, on the UI framework. It is still one of the things that differentiates the Apple user experience from Android today. Things just scroll a little faster on iOS native apps than they do on Android apps.”
Abadir said that appMobi’s focus throughout much of 2012 will be to give HTML5 developers better tools, frameworks, discovery and messaging in mobile HTML5 apps. The focus for the company will be more on the ecosystem than on building out the HTML5 specification.
“We would like to keep pushing on the community, generally. Because if developers cannot make money publishing HTML5 apps, they are just not going to do it,” Abadir said.
Edit: Here is the chart for those that find the graph with the circles above misleading.
Abadir said that there has been “no good solution for jQuery user interfaces for mobile” and that the company’s “no. 1 request has been for a UI framework.” Hence, jQ.Mobi. Abadir promises that the new framework will be a seventh the size and three times faster than what is available today.
“It’s great to finally see a lightweight JS library specifically tailored for smartphone performance and inspired by the popular APIs that made jQuery famous,” said Paul Bakaus, Zynga Germany CTO and creator of jQuery UI. “To me, this is the hopeful prediction of the future of jQuery 2.0, today.”
Testing bears that hope out. appMobi put jQ.Mobi up against the standard jQuery framework and micro-JavaScript framework Zepto and found that its new platform performs better on both Android and iOS. Across platforms, jQ.Mobi was designed and tested to prove identical experiences to users on both Apple’s and Google’s smartphone operating systems.
If you are curious as to what jQ.Mobi has in store, the company created a video explaining how the new UI framework functions and showing the features that can be found inside. appMobi is releasing it today in a beta format but full rollout should be coming within the next several months.
HTML5 Developers: Is this the type of UI framework that you have been waiting for? Let us know in the comments.
