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July 23, 2010 by Alexey Zakharov

HTML 5 vs Silverlight : Sencha - The First HTML5 Mobile App Framework

This is the first post of our series about future of Microsoft Silverlight in the world that is getting crazy about HTML 5. This won't be just another "black versus white" stories and we are not HTML 5 zealots. In this series we will highlight events happened in the web industry that shows pros and cons of using Microsoft Silvelright and HTML 5.

Just a week ago we discovered that one of our favorite javascript framework ExtJS changed its web domain to sencha.com. The big surprise was that ExtJS guys created "The First HTML5 Mobile App Framework" that supports Apple iOS and Google Android touchscreen devices.

The First HTML5 Mobile App Framework

Sencha's look and feel are very close to native Apple iOS and Google Android user interface.

Sencha Solitaire

Sencha KivaTouch

With Sencha release developers get promising cross mobile platform framework that works on both Apple iOS and Google Android. Also I think that there would be also no problems with upcoming Windows Mobile 7 and Microsoft CSS 3 support strategy.

But what about Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flex?! Flex is ignored on iOS. Silverlight future on both platforms also very uncertain. I think that Sencha is one of the real world example that shows how HTML 5 could solve the problems that still has no solutions on RIA platforms.

And what You think about it?

html 5 silverlight sencha flex flash css 3
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Rams
28 July 2010
I love the Sencha framework. My only grip and what stopped me from fully supporting it is the requirement that my app also be released under GPL if I chose to use Sencha. I understand that they are working on a commercial license but I hope the fees are nominal ($150 max) so independent devs like me can embrace it completely. Currently I am using iWebKit in combination with ASP.Net MVC. Would love to use Sencha but the GPL is too restrictive for my use.
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Alexey Zakharov
28 July 2010
Is it possible to use iWebKit with Android?
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Rams
28 July 2010
Yes, iWebKit work on all WebKit based browsers (Safari and Chrome).
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Alexey Zakharov
28 July 2010
Great! Looking forward to try it on Google Nexus One device.
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Bret Ferrier (runxc1)
28 July 2010
Sencha may turn out to be a good tool but in many ways will just be another way for creating a mobile version of your website. Now that is a very good thing and I prefer web sites that are tailored to my device but that doesn\'t really make it a cross platform native appication any more than you can call any other version of a mobile website a native application. If you want to create an application that makes use of the advantages of the platform that you are developing for... i.e. the accelerometer or the camera or the gps or... you are going to need to create a native application. In the WP7 world you are going to need to write some silverlight. In iPhone Objective C or something like monotouch that is compiled down to native binaries same with android. I think there is a huge need for better cross platform "mobile websites" and hopefully this will help but it won\'t replace native applications.
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Aleksandar Mirilovic
28 July 2010
Microsoft lost a big pecent of mobile market, and that means that you realy don\'t have to vary about ie7 that will be included in win phone 7, so on a mobile device we will probaly be dealing with a webkit browser (iOs, android, bada - samsung, blackbarry 6) or firefox mobile version (meeGo - nokia) or opera 10 mobile so we preaty much have support for html5 so the web on a mobile device will look better than on a desktop :) And concerning accelerometer or the camera or the gps you can see that they are going to support that in android http://code.google.com/events/io/2010/ and i think that others will follow... and you can see here http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Mobile-JavaScript-Development that it really does work... Silverlight on win phone 7 isn\'t native development (but it\'s the only thing allowed), that\'s why skype stopped development for win phone 7, and mozilla too. Developing native applications for all of those os is a big waste of money... Bottom line is that it really depends on what kind of application are you building, even ms office has a web version now, so for most the web is more than enough...
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James Hughes
28 July 2010
"Also I think that there would be also no problems with upcoming Windows Mobile 7" Not sure about this - WM7 comes bundled with IE7 so not HTML5 or CSS3 support. Considering this is an HTML5 framework support will be minimal to non-existant
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Alexey Zakharov
28 July 2010
I haven\'t heard that Windows Phone will use Internet Explorer 7. I thought it would be IE 9 with CSS 3 support.
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David Kaneda
03 August 2010
Hi all, Great to see such discussion forming around Sencha Touch. A few notes from what I've seen so far: * Sencha Touch will have a commercial license (preparing it now) and yes, Rams, while I can't disclose the pricing we're planning, it is in line with what you're thinking. * There is very little likelihood that ST will one-day work on Windows Phones, as we're targeting WebKit specifically, but there are great things in the works from BlackBerry, Palm/HP, and even still Android, that have the potential to really enlarge our supported device list. Best, Dave
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