Auto install of web app in iOS? - iphone

I've seen a similar question from nearly 2 years ago and I'm wondering if anything has changed.
I need to make the installation of a very simple web app more automatic, so that people can just click a link to install it, with maybe a confirmation button to let the iOS security know it's legitimate. The current process of having to add the shortcut to the homescreen, cuts out a large demographic that are used to more user friendly options.
Any help would be appreciated.

I'm afraid the "Add to homescreen" process is a necessary evil here (mainly due to security concerns with how the browser might interact with the springboard otherwise).
If you really don't think your audience can handle this (I'd guess that they can, if they've used a mobile browser at all), you could also add a button or popup that launches a short How-to to walk them through the process.

Related

Register app to open from Safari's "share" or "open in..." dialog not working. (though works from other apps)

I am trying to register my application to show up in Safari's "Open-in..." dialog when a user clicks the share button on any html webpage.
I have added the public.html (and public.data for good measure) content types to the Document Types in Xcode, as suggested in many answers: (See this question, this question, or this apple documentation.)
And, it seems to work. If I open a .pdf in Safari, I get the "open in My App" dialog at the top.
I can also use the "open in..." dialog from other apps to share the document with My App.
To test it, I built DocInteraction as recommended in this answer, and if I create an html file, My App shows up in the share dialog.
However, My App still doesn't show up in the share dialog in Safari.
When I run it in iOS7 on the iOS Simulator, I only get Mail, Twitter, and Facebook showing up:
The same goes when I test it on my real iOS device:
BUT, I would like you to note that it does seem to be possible! Look at the above screenshot.. SOMEHOW, Weibo has managed this feat. I don't know how, but for some reason Weibo shows up in this list even though My App doesn't.
And you know, actually, this sort of makes sense, given how many apps can probably open html pages. Here is DocInteraction running on my iOS device trying to share an html page:
There it is! My App! (It's actually called "Wulu Podify"). But there are so many apps who are hungry for .html pages, I guess Safari thinks it might be a bit overwhelming to provide them all.
BUT, this still begs the question, how did Weibo get themselves on that list? But, some further digging seems to show that actually Weibo seems to have gotten itself on EVERY list.
I'm not sure how they managed it, but maybe they are going about this differently.
Weibo's "I-will-open-any-document-you-throw-at-me-c'mon-try-it-c'mon" approach might solve this problem, but it's not ideal. I really only want to open html pages.
So. I guess my questions is three-fold:
Is there a way to actually have my app show up in Safari's "Open In..." dialog?
If not, how can I achieve what Weibo achieved, and show up in ALL the dialogs?
Should I want to do that? It seems like it might be a bad idea.
Thanks for any help! I've been at this for a while!!
Update:
So, actually, I didn't realize it but I think Weibo might be a built-in option just like Facebook and Twitter. I assumed it was just there because I have it installed on my phone, but maybe it was one of the iOS6 defaults. I say that because when I test on the iOS6.0 Simulator, I suddenly see Weibo show up in the share screen, even though I definitely haven't installed it on my simulator.
So maybe there is no way around this except for having it built in to Safari by apple..
I know this is years later, but if anyone runs into this old question, as of IOS 8, Apple now allows app creators to make "extensions" which do allow you to add your app to the share menus.
Here is some documentation:
https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/General/Conceptual/ExtensibilityPG/ExtensionScenarios.html
I fear what you want is not possible.
There is a difference between the Share dialog and the Open With dialog.
For the latter it's possible to register your app with document interaction, but the Share dialog only provides the native types (which Weibo is one of - see here: UIActivityViewController).
Also see this question on StackOverflow: is-it-possible-to-add-an-app-to-the-native-share-dialog
its , called extension , fist create a new project and than -->
file ->new -> target -> application Extension -> ####
and select your required extension and done....

How to display a our popup before other installed application startup?

Currently, I am working on one security application. In this application, user can select applications for which he/she want to have additional security.
So, before this selected application start, one 'popup/screen with question' will be displayed. and if user answers it right, popup will be dismissed.
So my question is, is it possible to display our popup/screen before other installed application startup?
And if yes, then how to do it?
I searched on google, but didn't find any useful.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
in iOS, Application run in its own sandbox environment. You cannot control other application's startup and hence this is not feasible using any apple documented APIs.
this is not possible.In iOS, Application run in its own sandbox environment so you cannot get any application information. this is only done in jailbreak programming. In witch you hook app startup method method and show your popup first.

How do I develop my website to work with the "reader" icon on iPhone?

This morning I had a look at my blog on my iPhone and noticed that when I view a specific page a Reader icon comes up next to the URL in the address bar:
When I press it, I get an interface like this:
This functionality was completely unintentional (I wasn't even previously aware of it) but I think really nice, so I want to try and implement it intentionally on a few other pages on my website (and other sites that I work on).
How do I work with and enable this feature?
You don't need any work on your site. This is build-in feature on iOS Safari.

Update iPhone app info without going through apple

i was wondering, i have a little experience making iPhone apps but no coding background in anything and was wondering.... Is there a way to update your iPhone app with new text, pictures, colors, links, etc. without manually doing it from Xcode then having to get the new version approved by apple.
I was hoping to be able to update it from possibly from my website. Any easy way to do this? Preferably the easiest solution. Thanks in advance
There is, but you have to design the application to do it from the start. Instead of reading from the app itself, the app reads from a content management system (CMS) or even just a text file stored on your website. Many apps work this way, but you will need to design the app with this in mind.
For the amount of things you need updated, I would create a iPhone optimized version of your website and in your app, all you would need is a web view that takes the user to your website. So to change content, you could just change your website and the user will think that the app is getting updated. One thing to keep in mind though, if the user doesn't have internet connection or if there internet is slow, the site my not show up at all or be very slow to respond and load. Hope this helps.

can you install an iphone app with an invisible icon?

So I am working on a bundle of applications for my company for the iPad and am trying to figure out if it is possible to install an app but hide the icon. It will not need to be launched from the desktop directly. Instead, I have created a launch desktop that controls login and the launch of the actual apps via custom URL schemes. We decided to do this so we can have many people developing different apps at the time time that quickly and easily connect to a single login and launch desktop. We are trying to make all of the services we offer interconnected.
Does anyone know if this is possible? Or am I going to have to redirect to the login app if the user launches any of the individual apps. That is what we were trying to avoid. It would be incredibly annoying and clunky for the user. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
No is the short answer, you can't install an app and hide the icon.
Even if you could, your architecture sounds pretty clunky. If your services are interconnected, then would it not be better to have everything in the same app? There are plenty of ways to share coding between many developers without everyone having their own, separate app.
Maybe.
There used to be a trick where if you installed so many apps that you filled up every page, any apps installed after that would not have a visible icon (but you could run them via a Spotlight search).
If this behavior still exists, then fill up your iPad's launcher/springboard with apps (download 100's of free games, etc.), then install the apps that you want to be invisible, then delete all the games, and your chosen app might remain with an "invisible" icon.