Hi John. I work at Sencha. We haven't spoken yet, but I think I have to respond to the "disservice" comment because frankly it seems a little uncharitable (and uncharacteristic of your usual even-handed demeanor) given that Sencha is promoting jQuery use by funding Jonathan Stark's work on jQTouch including work to port jQTouch to Android.
We intend to continue to fund jQTouch work because we want to support all those developers (thousands at least) that have chosen jQTouch (and jQuery) as their platform. We will continue to support jQTouch ports to more phones and more browsers as additional browsers and platforms emerge (like the Blackberry Torch) that can support a minimal rich application experience.
As you've noted in the past, Sencha Touch takes a different approach than what you're planning to do with jQuery Mobile. It's ok to differ, but we wouldn't characterize it as a "disservice". Our belief (right or wrong) is that few people will use applications (and I emphasize that word) unless they can produce experiences that can compete with native. We've had ten years of mobile web sites with static, unresponsive, high latency user experiences that haven't interested or excited people. We want to move on from that.
Today, iOS, Android and the Blackberry Torch can support web apps that compete with native experiences (woohoo!), but by the end of the year, we'll see phones from Nokia (and more from RIM and maybe even some from Microsoft) with good HTML5/CSS3 support and fast processors and GPU's that allow everyone to have rich app experiences regardless of their choice of carrier or their geography. With the rise of $30 HTML5 Android phones from China, we see this as inexorable.
Our two projects are making different assumptions about what will most interest (and excite) end-users. I hope we can maintain an engaged (and polite) discussion as we walk these paths. Feel free to email me, would love to chat more to provide more context around our decisions. We'll also put together a blog post soon on why we're doing what we are.
We intend to continue to fund jQTouch work because we want to support all those developers (thousands at least) that have chosen jQTouch (and jQuery) as their platform. We will continue to support jQTouch ports to more phones and more browsers as additional browsers and platforms emerge (like the Blackberry Torch) that can support a minimal rich application experience.
As you've noted in the past, Sencha Touch takes a different approach than what you're planning to do with jQuery Mobile. It's ok to differ, but we wouldn't characterize it as a "disservice". Our belief (right or wrong) is that few people will use applications (and I emphasize that word) unless they can produce experiences that can compete with native. We've had ten years of mobile web sites with static, unresponsive, high latency user experiences that haven't interested or excited people. We want to move on from that.
Today, iOS, Android and the Blackberry Torch can support web apps that compete with native experiences (woohoo!), but by the end of the year, we'll see phones from Nokia (and more from RIM and maybe even some from Microsoft) with good HTML5/CSS3 support and fast processors and GPU's that allow everyone to have rich app experiences regardless of their choice of carrier or their geography. With the rise of $30 HTML5 Android phones from China, we see this as inexorable.
Our two projects are making different assumptions about what will most interest (and excite) end-users. I hope we can maintain an engaged (and polite) discussion as we walk these paths. Feel free to email me, would love to chat more to provide more context around our decisions. We'll also put together a blog post soon on why we're doing what we are.
Look forward to hearing from you.
-- michael