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?
Related
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.
I was looking into PhoneGap and Titanium framework, and I did not clearly understand how to they work, let's suppose I have already developed an app for android or iphone, can I run this app on another mobile with a different OS with PhoneGap or Titanium help?
Or I have to develop again my app with PhoneGap/Titanium framwork?
In this case I have full support at all the features like thread, JSON or XML parsing and so on?
Thank you
PhoneGap basically takes a client-side web app (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and wraps the whole thing in a native device's web view control. You can hook to some of the device's native functions, but as you can guess, it's pretty limited compared to native development. But easy, and brings in a whole range of skills that a lot of people already have. That's really the appeal of PhoneGap.
Titanium is also html/javascript oriented, but it actually claims to compile to native code. Their sample "kitchen sink" app demos quite a lot of the native APIs, at least for the iPhone. I doubt you'd be able to deal directly with threading, but JSON for sure, and I'd think XML as well.
Titanium has full support for JSON or XML parsing.
You can see Titanium examples - Kitchen Sink - for more details.
The idea behind phone gap is that you can take a browser based client app that is written in html/css/javascript and use phonegap to gain access to some native mobile hardware like contacts, gps, accelerometer, etc. Phonegap allows you also to build this web app for different mobile devices all using the same web app code.
To answer the first part of your question, no, you would not be able to take a developed app and use PhoneGap or Titanium to run the app on another device.You would have to write the app in either the PhoneGap or Titanium Framework and then build the application to the devices you want to support through the tools that each give you.
For example, you would write your code in JavaScript(Titanium) or HTML/CSS/JavaScript(PhoneGap), then use the app's build tool to create the file that would be released onto the phone.
Am looking into developing an iPhone native app using Titanium Developer
Since this is still in beta, I am wondering if there are any better options and/or if its a good idea using such software to develop native apps (which are not games; not graphic intensive)
If you don't want to wait, you can do what a lot of us did: develop apps in Cocoa Touch. It works perfectly well for games as well as non-graphic intensive apps.
The similar and more mature PhoneGap framework has been used in a number of iPhone apps and Apple only seems to object if the application autoupdates.
That being said, I wouldn't recommend using web frameworks unless your application is really simple--you will get a much better experience from a native application (on both Android and iPhone)
My company uses Titanium and it's working fine so far. It's also a pleasure to develop iPhone app using javascript and co. I'd recomend you give it a try, it's really simple to set up and start coding.
Some reading up: http://boldr.net/iphone-app-with-titanium-mobile/
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.
Can I use Dashcode to develop an application that can be sold in the app store?
No. Dashcode is more for creating webapps. To create an app for the App Store, you must compile it with the iPhone SDK, and for that you need to use Xcode. Furthermore, Dashcode is predominantly JavaScript-based, whereas iPhone apps must be written in Objective-C.
I've never used DashCode, but since you can call up the browser from Objective-C, you should be able to use whatever HTML/CSS/JavaScript solutions work in Mobile Safari. Check out iui, xui, and jQTouch as well.
Some apps lend themselves to the browser solution, and some don't. Unless you use something like PhoneGap, it's quite a lot of glue work to get at the iPhone's special features with JavaScript.