Earlier this week, we had a chance to speak with David Kaneda, developer of the recently released jQTouch, a jQuery plugin for mobile web development on the iPhone, Android, Palm Pre, and other forward-thinking devices.
Refresh Events: Hi David, thanks for sitting down with us. Tell us a bit more about jQTouch; what does it do and who’s it for.
David Kaneda: Hi Justin, thanks for having me. jQTouch is a jQuery plugin for mobile web development. Ultimately it aims to work on all modern WebKit devices, like Android, Palm Pre (and hopefully soon Blackberry), but is currently optimized for iPhone. It allows web developers to create modern mobile apps which feel native, with animations, integrated Ajax, and history management.
RE: With all the other frameworks out there that do this, such as iUI and UIKIt, why did you decide to build jQTouch? What’s the difference?
KD: I was working on a few mobile sites for clients and began to look at frameworks like iUI. I’m a huge fan of jQuery though, especially for building Ajax-based apps, so I started by rebuilding iUI in jQuery, using jQuery’s optimizations where possible. It also gave me a chance to make a few updates along the way, like using native transitions where possible (for faster performance) and adding features like image preloading.
RE: Tell us a bit about the architecture. Which languages were used to build this application, and why did you choose those specific languages?
KD: The primary script is obviously in Javascript, but jQTouch uses lots of modern web technologies like CSS3 and HTML5. As jQTouch is intended for mobile WebKit, I use a fair amount of WebKit extensions within these specs.
RE: Tell us about the business model. Do you plan on monetizing jQTouch, or will you release under the open source license?
KD: jQTouch is free and open, provided under the MIT license.
RE: What’s the coolest or most useful feature of jQTouch?
KD: My favorite feature, hands down, is the 3d flip. At some point, we had the idea to have the pages shrink/grow 10% as the animation happened — a small detail which we noticed in native apps like Weather. This is definitely the most impressive looking transition at the moment.
RE: Talk to us about the future? Where do you see jQTouch going next?
KD: Our primary focus at the moment is optimization for Android and Pre users. Aside from that, we’ve still got a few custom transitions, infrastructure improvements, and themes up our sleeves.
RE: If there is one thing that you could change about jQTouch, what would it be?
KD: Currently my biggest pet peeve is the page transitions code. I love the page transitions themselves, but it doesn’t feel extensible or polished (in regard to code) yet. I hope to revamp this internally soon.
RE: And finally, for the bacon-loving community, how much bacon is there in the application?
KD: About 27 pounds.
RE: A grateful bacon-loving community salutes you, sir. Thank you so much for your time.
KD: Thank you for the opportunity!
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