Is there a way in Cordova 3.0 to check if that's the first time the application runs without using the DB for that purpose.
You could use localStorage to check for a variable. Try something like this:
in docummentready event:
if(window.localStorage.getItem('has_run') == '') {
//do some stuff if has not loaded before
window.localStorage.setItem('has_run', 'true');
}