early last year i made an html5 productivity app and i wrapped it with phonegap for ios
all i had to do was download the phonegap zip, run a script file on mac, and compile using xcode
i did not have to download megabytes of files, install thousands of sdks etc
the final app was 1.5mb in size!
i don't know if things changed from 2013 to now. i see that now phonegap is a product of adobe. is cordova the same thing?