PhoneGap allows developers to write native mobile applications using standard web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It provides a framework to package web apps so they can be deployed and run as native mobile applications on different platforms. Some key benefits of PhoneGap include being able to code apps once and deploy them across platforms, having a simpler development interface than native mobile development, and being able to leverage web development skills. The document provides information on installing PhoneGap, creating new PhoneGap projects, deploying to different mobile platforms, and dealing with common issues that come up.