How To Make iPhone App Into A Web App - iphone

If I make a iPhone app, like a grade manager. What technologies are necessary to make it into a web app.
This includes reading the data from iPhone app in the web app portal (not necessarily editing from web app as of now).
I think I need to transition from using plists to using MYSQL?

Probably you need to this:
http://www.phonegap.com/
it's an Open Source Mobile Framework That Supports iOS and other platforms.
Hope it will give you a guide.

The best approach would probably be to write a web app that can communicate with the iPhone app, not "converting" the iPhone app to run on the web.

Related

Can you bundle an Objective-C iPhone app and an HTML5 (PhoneGap) iPad app to make one universal app?

The apps provide the same functionality, but have different code bases.
Is this possible?
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "bundle" in this instance. PhoneGap provides the ability to deploy your app to numerous platforms (iOS, Android, Windows Phone) by writing in just HTML5, CSS, and Javascript. Your question states that you have a functioning HTML5 version of the app written for the PhoneGap platform. If this is the case, what is the need for the Objective-C iPhone app? Simply maintaining the HTML5 app should be sufficient to deploy to both iPad and iPhone. PhoneGap currently supports iOS, iPad, and retina displays.
From the PhoneGap documentation, you can specify differences in your interface using config.xml.
You can mix phonegap and native code fairly easily - just have the startup code check the platform type and display either the native view or the phonegap webview.
However, whatever you do at this point will result in some inconvenience to users - the only way to share in app purchases across devices is to have a single universal app. If you want to keep existing purchases, you have to add an ipad view to the existing iphone app, but that will not show up as an update for anyone who has the existing iPad app.
There are other possibilities such as setting up a server to track purchases in both apps, but that gets a lot more complicated than standard in app purchase and only works if your app includes a login system.

Will IOS HTML5 offline app be listed in appstore?

I am new to IOS development (currently, I'm developing websites in ASP.NET) and I found out that one can create an IOS app using just html 5 and javascript.
Well that is great news for me since I don't have the time to learn Obj-C and xCode way of writing apps.
I have heard some opposing statements, though, on whether I will be able to submit my app into the app store.
Will I be able to submit such app in the app store?
If not, is there a way to 'wrap it up' somehow, so it could be submitted?
Thanks!
No, only native app will be listed in the App store. To submit apps to the appstore you will always need a paid Apple Developers account.
Native in this case meaning real apps that can be installed.
You can build an app in HTML and Javascript in tools like Phonegap and Titanium. These tools will create a native app which loads the local HTML and try to make it feel like a native app.
You will need to use a wrapper, like AppMobi (where I work). This lets you write your app in html, javascript and CSS only.
You need to wrap your application in a UIWebView container. As far as I know, there's no way to package an HTML5 only app for the App Store. I have four apps in there that are HTML5/Javascript apps, wrapped in a UIWebView. There are also third-party frameworks available for this.

Is it possible to create a widget for iOS?

I'm a little bit confused now. There is a weather and stock widget on the iPhone. Is it possible to create such a widget yourself? I don't want to talk about new features in iOS 5 here. I only want to know it in general (iOS < 5).
Here I found the introduction guide with the help of Dashcode.
Wikipedia also states that this is not possible. I always thought it would be.
So are there only web apps and native apps possible?
PS: What is a widget exactly? A combination of native app and HTML, CSS, Javascript? Only HTML, CSS, Javascript? A cocoa application?
No, iOS does not currently allow the creation of widgets. The weather and stock widgets you're talking about were created by Apple. There are no APIs to write your own.
As of iOS8, its possible. 3rd party apps will be able to create widgets for the notification center.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2014/06/02Apple-Releases-iOS-8-SDK-With-Over-4-000-New-APIs.html
This isn't a Guide for iOS Widgets, it's Guide for Mac Dashboard Widgets.
You can't
create iOS Widgets
change how the iOS Notifications Appear
With Dashcode you can create Web Applications for both iOS and Mac. It's a combination of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Those Web Applications are only available on the Web (e.g. Safari). If you wan't to create a native App you have two possibilities:
Create a real native Application in ObjC
Create a Web Application (e.g. with Dashcode) and load it into a UIWebView, this requires also ObjC.
Advantages
Web-only Application (Browser-App)
You don't need a Apple Developer Account
Easy to port to Mac and other Smartphones
Unreal-native Application (Browser-App in a native App)
Easy to port to other Smartphones
It feels like a real native app
Your app is on the App Store
Native Application (Real iOS-App)
You have full access to the iPhone Frameworks (e.g. Contacts.app)
Your app is on the App Store
Disadvantages
Web-only Application (Browser-App)
The user needs to know your URL
You're not in the App Store
Unreal-native Application (Browser-App in a native App)
You need to pay 99$/year for an Apple Developer Account
It could feel like it's not a native app
You have not the full access to the iPhone Frameworks except you use something like PhoneGap or ObjC
Native Application (Real iOS-App)
You need to pay 99$/year for an Apple Developer Account
You can't port your app easy to other Smartphone
You need to learn ObjC
No, currently thats not possible. But you can, and should, file a feature request at bugreport.apple.com so that this issue gets some attention.
There is no reason you can't create a widget like component using javascript and display it in a uiwebview. This works equally well in android and iOS
A few years ago when I was involved with java server pages development I put together a tutorial of using dashcode to wrap java or javascript components.
http://www.jsfcentral.com/listings/A21034;jsessionid=A15086803ABF96A63DB1AB5405C9A329?link

Web Development ported to iPhone

We want to make an iPhone app but we would like to be able to do web development on some sort of framework, and then use something to kind of port this into an iPhone app for us.
Is there anything out there that exists like this?
You might want to check out Phonegap.
Please see these questions:
Comparison between Corona, Phonegap, Titanium
How to integrate html5 and iphone applications?
Some discussion about general webapp verus native app issues:
iPhone apps: Webapps or native?

Requirements for web development for iPhone Mac/Windows?

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.