I encountered a similar issue and worked around it with something like this:
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<title>Test App</title>
<script type="text/javascript" src="cordova-2.8.0.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src ="assets/lib/jquery-1.9.0.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src ="assets/lib/jquery.mobile-1.2.0.min.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="assets/lib/jquery.mobile-1.2.0.css" type="text/css" />
<script type="text/javascript" >
$.mobile.defaultPageTransition = 'none'; // Remove default page transition
$('div[data-role="page"]').on('pagecreate',function(event, ui){
$('div[data-role="footer"] a', $(this)).on("taphold",function(e){
$(this).addClass("ui-btn-active");
$(this).one("touchend", function(e){
e.preventDefault();
$(this).trigger("click", e.data); // Remove this if you don't want the long press to act as a click
$(this).removeClass("ui-btn-down-a ui-btn-active");
return false;
});
});
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div data-role="page" id="page-1">
<div data-role="content">
<p>Page 1</p>
</div>
<div data-role="footer" data-position="fixed">
<div data-role="navbar">
<ul>
<li><a href="#page-1">Page 1</a></li>
<li><a href="#page-2">Page 2</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div data-role="page" id="page-2">
<div data-role="content">
<p>Page 2</p>
</div>
<div data-role="footer" data-position="fixed">
<div data-role="navbar">
<ul>
<li><a href="#page-1">Page 1</a></li>
<li><a href="#page-2">Page 2</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
You can download my Eclipse project and compiled APK here