Fun Apps w/ PhoneGap

Here’s a silly/fun app I built ‘after hours’ using PhoneGap.   It is a children’s drawing app built entirely with the HTML5 Canvas element, using a PhoneGap wrapper, targeting the iPad.  I was inspired by magnetic drawing toys that I often use when drawing with my daughter, and this was really, really easy and a lot of fun to build.  I used the exact HTML5 Canvas brush image/sketching technique that I have previously demonstrated – the only change is that I added the new UI style elements and added support for multiple touch points. Otherwise, the drawing logic is identical.

Lil’ Doodle is a great new iPad application for entertaining both you and your children! If you know how to use a children’s magnetic drawing toy, then you know how to use Lil’ Doodle. Pick a “pen” shape, and start doodling. Your imagination is your only limit. If you want to erase everything and start over, just use the slider at the bottom. Doodle and have fun!

Using the HTML5 Canvas inside of PhoneGap has great performance on iOS, and building the application using purely HTML, CSS, and JavaScript made it incredibly simple. After I wrote the core drawing engine for a previous blog post, I whipped up the UI in one evening, and then started user testing with my little beta tester.  She found some issues that I had overlooked, and a few days later I submitted it to the app store.

…and yes, she really does play with it:

The app is currently available for iPad devices on iTunes – I’m about to start researching/testing performance on other platforms, so maybe soon it will be out in other ecosystems… we’ll see.   You can get it now at:

tricedesigns.com/go?lildoodle

Enjoy!

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