Datasheet

Chapter 1: The iPhone and iPod touch Development Platform
3
Quite obviously, there are important differences between an iPhone/iPod touch application running
inside of Mobile Safari and a native application. From a developer standpoint, the major difference is the
programming language utilizing Web technologies rather than Objective - C. However, there are also
key end - user implications, including:
Performance: The performance of a Safari - based application is not going to be as responsive
as a native compiled application, both because of the interpretive nature of the programming
languages as well as the fact that the application operates over Wi - Fi and EDGE networks.
(Remember, iPod touch supports Wi - Fi access only.) However, in spite of the technological
constraints, you can perform many optimizations to achieve acceptable performance. (Several of
these techniques are covered in Chapter 10 .)
Figure 1 - 2: Mobile Safari preferences
c01.indd 3c01.indd 3 12/7/07 2:29:07 PM12/7/07 2:29:07 PM