The mobile browser may provide an answer. Browser support for extended features of mobile devices, such as the iPhone, iPad, and Android smartphones, is starting to be good — very good, indeed. Two recent projects illustrate what can be done beyond what’s already built into WebKit for mobile devices.

Spoiler alert: The two projects are jQTouch and Sencha Touch.

Just a quick note to let everyone know I’ll be speaking this weekend at the jQuery Conference in San Francisco Bay area. The talk will be on jQTouch, hopefully showing off some new goodies, and is going down day two, April 25, at 10:00 am. Tickets are available here.

jQTouch, my jQuery plugin for iPhone/iPod Touch development just won the grand prize for the 14 Days of jQuery competition over at Media Temple. I’m getting a sweet new MacBook Pro and a year’s worth of hosting! A huge thank you to jQuery, Media Temple, and all the developers that help make jQTouch better everyday. I can’t wait to get some development time in this weekend…

My recent discussion with the IT Conversations crew about jQTouch, WebKit, and mobile development.

maniacalrage:

Neven Mrgan:

Nial Giacomelli has done a bang-up job with Showtime, his web app for keeping track of your favorite TV shows. It’s not fabulous “for a web app”, it’s fabulous period.

I’ve complained before about web apps versus native apps and how web apps can’t compete for the most part, but Showtime shows how great a web app can really be. Simple, focused, well designed, with good interaction and thoughtful features.

Just want to mention that Showtime is actually powered by my iPhone jQuery plugin jQTouch. As to John Gruber’s second point (the on/off needs to be tapped): This is fixable, and on its way for jQTouch beta 3. I agree on a separate point, though, scrolling performance with web apps seems seriously inhibited on the iPhone—my only guess as to why is the additional memory needed by having a DOM, Javascript interpreter, etc. (compared to a native table list). Hopefully advances in the iPhone’s hardware and mobile WebKit will nullify this point in the next year.

The new beta of jQTouch is ready for download with a ton of enhancements and fixes. For those who don’t know, jQTouch is a jQuery plugin which helps create immersive experiences on the iPhone and iPod Touch. New in beta 2:

• 8 core page animations (including several 3d options) and the ability to easily add your own. See the animations running like butter in a demo video.
• Support for custom extensions, including 4 built-in sample extensions for geo location, offline support, a “floaty” menu, and automatic title creation.
• A public object now allows you to manipulate jQTouch dynamically with functions like goTo(), goBack(), and submitForm().
• A “fast touch” feature is enabled by default, improving responsiveness up to 500% in some cases.

Check out the new preview on your iPhone and download a copy to play with today!