I have tried looking for some answers but could not get anything concrete from the other questions in here.
I am looking for an answer to these two questions:
Using PhoneGap, if I create an iPhone web app, can I use it as
plain web app (i.e. without using iTunes to deploy it)? Just via a
web url?
Using PhoneGap, can an iPhone web app check for wifi
connectivity? i.e. If wifi/3g is available, if wifi is available,
can it scan for ssids.
Thanks for any help in advance.
You can create host the web app on your own server (or local). Then it is accessible via web url. If you want to use it as a normal app (there are differences - phonegap uses few native plugins for better experience), then you must have a developer license from apple and then deploy it to your device. Otherwise you can only use the simulator. You can also use Safari + USB to debug your app using the browser.
It is possible but limited. Only certain functionalities are available. Check out the following plugin for cordova (phonegap):
cordova-plugin-wifi
Good luck!
Related
I just found out that an iPhone can act as a web server to access the app's data. I'm using Xcode. How do I extend my app's capabilities so that users can edit app data using a Mac. Where can I learn about this? Can you give me summary and a website please?
I hope it's using Apache Tomcat. I suppose I have to build a website to process and display the app's data. I wonder if iPhone supports jsp since it's using UNIX. I really don't want to use PHP.
Currently Money Manager has that feature.
Searching for embedded iOS web server returns a few solutions:
Run a webserver on an iOS device
A small, lightweight, embeddable HTTP server for Mac OS X or iOS applications
Lightweight GCD based HTTP server for OS X & iOS
You will be unlikely to fit php or tomcat onto an iOS device; the lack of memory and processing power will be technically challenging.
Apple will also likely take a negative view of the inclusion of a general purpose scripting language in any app your submit to the App Store.
I've spent the day googling all the leads on developing iphone apps on Windows and apart from buying a mac the most suitable route seems to be Phonegap. I cannot find out whether Phonegap gives access to all the native functionality. For example I want to access and manipulate the address book contents. I also want to be able to send text messages programatically and intercept and examine incoming text messages. It would be helpful if someone could confirm whether this can be done with Phonegap.
My understanding is that Phonegap is based on webapps but I am assuming that an app developed with it can run offline for operations that dont require internet access.
Even using Phonegap you will still need access to a mac to actually build your iOS application. This is a restriction that Apple has in place, and to my knowledge there is no way around it.
Phonegap uses a UIWebView to display your application built using HTML, CSS, Javascript etc, but this does not mean that an Internet connection is required for the app to run (so offline apps are definitely possible).
With regards to Phonegap's functionality, details of the Phonegap API can be found on their website. Specific to your needs, I believe phonegap provides access to the device's address book through the contacts API:
http://docs.phonegap.com/en/2.3.0/cordova_contacts_contacts.md.html#Contacts
I don't think Phonegap provides the ability to send SMS messages itself, but many people have developed extensions to add extra functionality to their applications through plugins. The majority of Phonegap iOS plugins can found at the following GitHub repo. The plugin I think you require is the SMSComposer:
https://github.com/phonegap/phonegap-plugins/tree/master/iOS/SMSComposer
I'm writing a web application using Dashcode. Is it possible to access the iPhone address book from within this web application?
Dashcode is just the development environment IDE for generating widgets and iPhone apps and actually write the apps using JavaScript, HTML and CSS. Any app you make will need to sit on a server and be accessed through the mobile browser on the iPhone. So the question is can you/i connect from a web app to the iPhone native applications. Just from a security point of view i would doubt that this is possible or even desirable,
However i have seen suggestions that a native application in x-code could be built that would have a web interface that would be able to talk to the browser but i am not sure how you would engineer that or if it would work.
I suspect a simple solution is to sync your iPh=one contact with Gmail, or similar web app and then access it or write your own server that you sync contacts to. However this is not a general solution i suspect.
Hope this helps even though it is not the answer.
I am building a hosted mobile application so I can write once and deploy to many mobile platforms. My plan is to write a native application with a single screen that is a browser that navigates to my hosted application. Of course this is so our application is in the App Store, Android Market, etc.
Is it possible to use the PhoneGap JavaScript so my hosted applications can use local APIs? For example, I would like to be able to upload pictures taken from the camera.
Short answer: no.
More information: PhoneGap: It's possible to use only the phonegap.js and it's functions only in a Website (doesn't want an App only a Webpage)?
Short answer
No. You need to add pctures upload logic in each framework
In addition to what has been answer it will also depend on your application store offering. If you're intending to offer the app in the iPhone App Store, these kind of apps aren't permitted. In the guidelines it states that apps that basically launch a browser or UIWebView will be rejected.
Additionally, you could always create the app as a "home screen" app, that runs without the chrome, etc on the iPhone. Hope this helps.
I am planning to make an iPhone web application and I just wanted to know what is required for web development?
Can I do the web development on a windows machine? Does Apple provide any iPhone plugin so that we can develop web application using Windows?
What is required for developing on a Mac?
Regards,
Amit
If you are making a web application, you can download Safari for Windows and view it there.
You can also use Joe Hewitt's iUI framework to make your app look and feel all iPhone-y.
? If you are gonna build a web application, the application runs on the browser. To use your application the user use Safari (on the iPhone). Apple doesn't control web applications.
If you mean, embed your web application, INSIDE a native iPhone application, you need a Mac to build the wrapper, for the core application you can use whatever system you want.
May I suggest to take a look at phonegap (if you are looking to iPhone app).
Check out these three apple sites:
http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/codinghowtos/Mobile/GraphicsMediaAndVisualEffects/index.html
http://developer.apple.com/safari/
http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/navigation/CodingHow-Tos.html
I would check out these pages thoroughly, and also at a minimum, I'd download safari for mac or windows.
Yes, you can develop it on windows. They are just web apps.
For mac or windows, latest safari and a public website is probably all you need. Check out google app engine for a good free development site that supports a database/datastore. www.appspot.com
Also, you can look at the webapps on a regular computer. http://www.apple.com/webapps/travel/staycation.html
http://wsidecar.apple.com/cgi-bin/nph-reg3rdpty2.pl/product=25536&cat=94&platform=osx&method=sa/
http://www.apple.com/webapps/games/
I presume you are talking about creating a web application designed to be used from an iphone.
The iphone uses safari as its browser. You can download this for use on windows and it should give you an accurate representation of how your app will look when rendered on an iphone. However in order to test how well your app performs on the phone, and if it really is usable using the touch screen the I think the only way to be really sure is to test using the iPhone.
You can use safari for windows to test the rendering but for your final tests you need to use a real iphone in order to understand how your users will experience it.