Native applications versus mobile web applications [Building Mobile Applications]

Native mobile applications provide great benefits over mobile web applications. Native web applications are run from the device memory, so there is little need for network interaction; these applications tend to load and runfaster. One of the other key advantages of native mobile applications is that they have access to the device's native features such as camera, device information, and accelerometer; this gives native applications an added advantage over mobile web applications.
In this task we will create a native iOS application using the Native Applications section of Zend Studio. Before you get started, make sure that Xcode IDE in installed on your Mac. Perform the following steps:
1.       Now, from our mobile application project choose Create iOS Application:

2.       You will be asked to provide the project details; please specify the Company Name and Bundle Id values. The Bundle Id value refers to the unique name that is used to identify the application; this is usually provided in the com.my-company-name. my-application-name format. When you register the application with the Apple Store, ensure that the bundle identifier matches with the one provided at Apple.

3.       Now the new iOS project is created in the workspace as you can see in the following screenshot:

4.       If you run the project, the application will launch the iOS emulator and will launch the mobile application as shown in the following screenshot:

What just happened?

We have created a new native iOS application using Zend Studio support for a native application; in our next section we will be using Zend Framework 2 to provide web services for this application.