As designers we envision and witness the birth of an idea, and as developers, we project that idea in the form of an application. If you think you have the "next best" idea for an iPhone application, then now you can design and develop one too! Building applications for the iPhone is evolving rapidly not only in the hands of software programmers, but web designers and developers as well.

And a growing number of development tools are also being used by designers. Here's a hand-picked list that contains 10 amazing framework tools that will help you build an application for the iPhone.

iWebkit

iWebKit is a free mobile framework designed to help you create and develop your very own iPhone and iPod Touch compatible website or web applications. This kit is very easy to use, and it comes with a user guide that has great examples, themes, plugins, CSS3 adaptive, and access to the iPhone support forum. With iWebKit you don't need to be an expert at coding, you can create web apps and iPhone compatible websites in minutes!

iUI: iPhone User Interface Framework

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iUI, the iPhone User Interface Framework for Safari development on your iPhone. It uses a variety of technologies such as JavaScript, CSS, HTML and images to help you develop great iPhone web applications. iUI gives you the ability to create navigations menus, iPhone interfaces from standard HTML, basic web pages, and a true "iPhone-like" experience for users.

[a=http://www.jeffmcfadden.com/projects/Magic%20Framework/]Magic Framework[/a]

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The Magic Framework is a native iPhone UI imitator and HTML5 db interface built in html/css/javascript. It’s useful for online websites or on-device Webkit-based applications looking to imitate the native iPhone UI and/or use native storage without having to write native code.

XUI

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XUI is a simple JavaScript framework that helps anyone with some basic JavaScript knowledge build mobile web applications. XUI strives to be a framework for first class mobile device browsers such as WebKit, Fennec and Opera with future support under consideration for IE Mobile and BlackBerry.

JQTouch

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JQTouch is a jQuery plugin for mobile web development on the iPhone and other various mobile devices. JQTouch comes with an easy setup, native WebKit animations, image preloading, callback events, flexible themes, swipe detection, sweet extensions, and more!

Rhodes (Ruby and gems required)

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Rhodes is an open source framework for building native apps for all major smartphone operating systems. These are true native device applications (NOT mobile web apps) which work with synchronized local data and take advantage of device capabilities such as GPS, PIM contacts and camera.

PhoneGap

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PhoneGap is an open source development tool for building fast, easy mobile apps with JavaScript. If you’re a web developer who wants to build mobile applications in HTML and JavaScript while still taking advantage of the core features in the iPhone, Android and Blackberry SDKs, PhoneGap is for you.

Modelbaker

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ModleBaker is a fast and easy web and iPhone & iPod touch application development. No programming skills required. It even comes with a built in MySQL database support an added Security Component creates an easy way to integrate tighter security in your application.

Cappuccino

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Cappuccino is an open source application framework for developing applications that look and feel like the desktop software users are familiar with. Cappuccino is built on top of standard web technologies like JavaScript, and it implements most of the familiar APIs from GNUstep and Apple's Cocoa frameworks. With Cappuccino, you don't need to know HTML. You'll never write a line of CSS, and you don't ever have to interact with DOM.

WebApp.Net

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WebApp.Net was designed to mimic the actual iPhone and iPod Touch graphic user interface. It provides many powerful and easy to use components, based on javascript and cascading style sheets technologies, to help you design great and must seen web applications for iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, webOS and any other devices with a WebKit based browser. WebApp.Net can be used with any server side technology (ASP.Net, PHP, Ruby...).