jQuery Mobile: Develop and Design

Book Preface

Smartphone, tablet, and e-reader statistics are showing an unprecedented adoption rate, making the mobile web a very hot topic and requiring a new set of skills from web developers and designers. Mobile device usage is skyrocketing; according to Nielsen’s third-quarter 2011 Mobile Media Report, “44 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers now own a smartphone device, compared to 18 percent just two years ago.” That’s more than double in two years, and “the number of smartphone subscribers using the mobile Internet has grown 45 percent since 2010.” As for tablets, in June 2011 AMI-Partners (Access Markets International) forecasted that “tablet adoption among businesses with between 1 and 1,000 employees will grow by 1,000 percent by 2015.”

Let’s not forget e-readers, which are becoming very affordable and are more advanced then ever, increasing in shipment volume, as “year-over-year growth was 167%” according to International Data Corporation (IDC). With the introduction of the latest Kindle, mobile Internet access is now becoming a normal experience. With these increases in adoption rate, there will no doubt be high demand for web developers who can create rich mobile web experiences. The jQuery Mobile framework gives web developers a quick and easy way to create mobile web experiences, making the mobile web space hard to ignore.