Getting Started with Mobile Web Applications

Out of all three types of custom mobile applications, Web applications are arguably those closest to and benefiting most from the Force.com platform, particularly if they are mobile versions of Visualforce pages. Mobile aside, Web applications can be challenging to build due to rapidly moving trends in usability, browser standards, and security practices. Mobile Force.com applications add a number of additional challenges that are addressed in this section.

At a high level, there are three major areas to examine when building mobile Web applications with Force.com:

Frameworks—Web development frameworks typically adopt some design pattern such as MVC (Model-View-Controller) or MVVM (Model-View-View Model). These patterns separate logic from presentation and allow the construction of scalable, interactive Web applications. They usually bundle or recommend a templating and data access layer. Some frameworks are specifically tailored for mobile applications.

Data access—Assuming that Force.com is the data layer for the mobile application, there are a few options for integrating it.

Deployment—Deployment concerns how mobile users will find and start using your mobile application. This is more complex with mobile Web applications than native applications.