10 Awesome Mobile Frameworks for App Development

The ever-increasing usage of mobile applications has motivated developers to build more powerful and highly robust applications. Today, none of the sectors have been untouched by the rapidly expanding popularity of mobile applications. Whether its the banking sector, GPS or factory automation; mobile applications are being rapidly used everywhere. Through this post, I’ll be introducing you to 5 of the most commonly used mobile frameworks which have been recommended by leading app developers across the globe.

1. jQuery Mobile

As one of the most widely used mobile frameworks, jQuery Mobile comes loaded with a wide collection of third-party plugins, tools, extensions, themes and a lot more. While developing mobile and hybrid mobile apps using jQuery Mobile, you can encounter a massive use of HTML “data” attributes. Plus, this framework has been specially designed to work within the Responsive Web Design(RWD) Context.

2. Appium

Serving as an excellent open source mobile framework, Appium allows you to automate mobile app testing in your preferable language. Additionally, you can even gain complete access to the databases and back-end APIs via the test code. You need to have Nodejs for running Appium. Plus, this is a Mac OS X only mobile framework.

3. Kendo UI Mobile

Having evolved into a full-fledged UI Mobile framework, Kendo UI Mobile has been remarkably used for creating mobile web and hybrid mobile applications. Offering both app framework functionality and UI widgets, this framework targets desktop and mobile devices. Some of the features worth noting for Kendo UI Mobile framework include: two-way binding, theming that matches the native look and feel of iOS, Blackberry, Android and Windows Phone 8, view transitions, navigation and layout templates.

4. Junior

If you’re looking for a brilliant HTML5 front-end mobile app development framework, then Junior is for you. This framework supports all swipable carousels and uses CSS3 transitions. With a seamless integration with backbone.js views + routers, Junior can be used easily for developing out-of-the-box mobile applications. Some of the leading apps that use Junior include: Poutsch, Price That! And Planit Planner.

5. Titanium Appcelerator

As yet another brilliant option for app developers, Titanium Appcelerator is an open source framework that’s best suited for Javascript programmers. A completely extensible app development environment, Titanium Appcelerator works well for creating eye-catchy applications for a wide range of mobile platforms including iOS, Android, BlackBerry, HTML5 and many more. Equipped with an open source SDK, Titanium Appcelerator is an MVC Framework that’s perfect for building cloud-ready applications.

6. Sencha Touch

Sencha serves as an outstanding mobile focused HTML5 development platform that’s ever-ready for even the very complex use cases in mobile applications. Offering an MVC style architecture, Sencha Touch is a full app framework that’s been shipped with 50 built-in components. Since the framework shares some common code with ExtJS, it becomes convenient for the developers familiar with ExtJS to get the vibe of app development much faster. With its own set of abstractions, Sencha Touch is considered as a one-stop/full stack option for building high-quality mobile applications.

7. Xamarin

Best suited for developers already familiar with C# Programming language, Xamarin is a framework which allows you to create native Android apps, iOS apps and Windows Phone applications. As an app developer, you need to master individual device APIs in order to access Geolocation, Camera or Contacts.

8. Enyo

Enyo is an impressive JavaScript framework which has been specially created for powering applications on HP’s TouchPad. Offering excellent cross-platform capability, Enyo works well on all major browsers and comes equipped with a wide spectrum of cross-platform UI widgets and a layout library.

9. Trigger.io

Trigger.io is a mobile framework that utilizes real native UI components for creating efficient mobile applications. Also, fostering faster workflows, Trigger.io enables the reuse of web/mobile web code for creation of native applications. Custom-made for developers with a huge budget, Trigger.io comes with features wherein you can perform updates to the application without prompting the users to install any updates manually.

10. Mobello

Mobello is a noteworthy open source Javascript UI framework that simplifies the process of mobile app development. Optimized for a majority of touch events, Mobello has a collection of 20+ UI components along with a unique IDE called Mobello Studio. This IDE works as an excellent option for developing mobile apps using CSS3, HTML5 and the Mobello framework itself. Other impressive features available with Mobello include: Javascript debugger, drag and drop enabled visual design editor and a built-in mobile device emulator.

Conclusion

Now that you’ve a range of mobile frameworks to choose from, it’s time to make a selection and get going with creation of truly amazing mobile applications which look great and operate in accordance to the end user’s expectations.