1. A method comprising: instantiating a gesture object for an application to handle gesture recognition for the application through native gesture functionality provided by a computing device; associating the gesture object with interaction inputs and a target element specified by the application; creating a recognizer on behalf of the application to facilitate gesture recognition through the native gesture functionality provided by the computing device; feeding interaction input data for the interaction inputs to the recognizer to enable recognition of gestures based on the interaction input data; obtaining gesture event messages from the recognizer that are indicative of recognized gestures; processing raw gesture data described by the gesture event messages on behalf of the application; and firing gesture events having processed gesture data to the associated target element in accordance with a content model for the application.