Sencha's HTML5-based mobile application framework has just passed more than 100,000 downloads since the start of its public beta program back in June of this year. The company, formerly known as "Ext JS", says that it has tapped into a "wide and latent" need for creating high-performance web apps for touch-based mobile devices like Apple's iOS iPhone and iPad, Android, and Blackberry.

The first full release of the Sencha Touch framework will be out of beta toward the end of September. Available under both GPLv3 and commercial license options, the company says that Sencha Touch is the world's first app framework built specifically to leverage HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript.

With tools including the ability to make user interfaces resolution independent, developers have been using the beta to produce touch-based games such as Remember The Card and exploring the potential to create cross-platform web apps that look and feel like native apps. With Apple being infamously sluggish and unpredictable to approve new software for its App Store, developers may consider a Sencha Touch "app" (which is effectively just a website) to be a smart route towards monetization.

Sencha's vice president of products and marketing Michael Mullany used his corporate blog to explain the company's technology proposition, "I won’t take this space to go over the entire feature list, but we feel confident that a majority of mobile apps today could be developed with Sencha Touch and deployed as pure web apps because they don't need access to device capabilities like cameras or Bluetooth."

"Let's remind ourselves why web applications are amazing things. They work cross browser because they're based on standards. You don't need to update them. As a developer, you never need to worry about old versions that people won't upgrade. They're searchable and their content shows up in search engines, which do a far better job of figuring out what people mean than any app store hierarchy," added Mullany.