First of all I'm totally not advertising for this app or for this team.
I came a cross to their apps and I noticed that all their apps are using the same interface.
But what wondered me are these inside the apps are a special design websites inside their apps or what? because I'm interested how did they make it.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/awesome-laws-pro/id320196287?mt=8
By the way, I'm a Objective-c beginner and still learning.
It's hard to say what they do. It's easier to say what they could do.
They could be using a custom view and drawing things themselves. Or they could be rendering the text (quoted law) to an HTML string and loading that string into a WebView, linked with a stylesheet.
Related
I wanted to make my own WebApp for testing so I will know what to do when I've got some serious stuff to do. I found some info about using HTML, CSS and Javascript to make the web app look like real iOS but one thing that bugs my mind is hot to make the textfield look like the one iOS uses or at least similar to that and how to make it across the whole screen (width) but with some margins on the left and right... well so it looks nice and naturally.
I appreciate every single answer.
One option you could try is checking out Appcelerator Titanium which let's you develop iPhone/iPad/Android (and even Mac/PC) applications using just HTML/CSS/JavaScript. It allows you to utilize the native UI elements, including forms, lists, buttons, etc...
If you're thinking of developing mobile apps, this is a pretty cool tool to use (especially if you're not a Object-C wizz).
One example of a tool that uses Titanium is WunderList to-do application.
I'd use jquerymobile or sencha touch... depending on whether you're familiar with ExtJS or not. That way you can focus on adding in your content, not messing around with CSS forever to try and simulate something you'll replace with iOS eventually anyway.
http://jquerymobile.com/
http://dev.sencha.com/deploy/touch/examples/kitchensink/
You can do so using the -webkit-border-image CSS property. Even if you're using some kind of framework that does all that stuff for you, it's always nice to know how it's achieved under the hood, as it's always re-applicable somewhere else.
Ref: http://css-infos.net/property/-webkit-border-image
There are many apps implement UI with UIWebView and HTML.
The HTML5 is very powerful, that I could hardly tells the difference between cocoa components and HTML elements.
Is there any method to determine whether the app is using HTML instead of cocoa components?
I'm currently implementing a application that the UI view is just a UIWebView pointing to a web site.
It depends on how much like a ios "app" the web site looks like. The only difference I can see is the loading speed of graphics from a web site is slower than locally stored graphics in a app. If you crafted the web site well enough, you would not be able to tell.
There is a big difference in look and feel of WebView app and native applications.. Main difference is UI responsiveness. Native applications tend to behave snappier, table views in those applications scroll more naturally, buttons and controls are more responsive.
It can't be explained in few lines, but you should feel it when using application. We made few cross platform apps with web technologies, and they can't be compared to native ones... No matter how hard we tried to emulate native behaviors...
EDIT:
See my answer
I saw some interesting frameworks to build applications for mobile platforms like Android and iPhone with HTML and Javascript so you can use your current web-development skills without learning a new platform language. That's very interesting because you can write just ONE application for many platforms. Very easy to maintain.
But, you cannot sell it in the App stores, so I’m wondering if it is possible to use an embedded webbrowser in the application that loads an external/included html file.
I have seen that it is possible to create Android and iPhone apps with flash, that's is easy, so i want to create a simple 'host' application that only loads content and I can use it over and over again to distribute a new app.
So the question is, is it possible to create a simple app with flash that embeds a webbrowser to load a html file?
When it is possible, next question is, it possible to communicate with the embedded webbrowser? Also a question is, will Apple allow such application in it app store?
I hope my question is understandable.
In a very strict sense, yes, you can make an app that is just a simple WebView wrapper pointing to your web-hosted app.
This is usually frowned upon though in the android market community, and i'm fairly positive such an app won't make it through Apple's closed-doors decision committee.
On the iPhone, if your app only consist of a UIWebView it is very likely that you app is going to be rejected. What you could do is ask your users to bookmark your webapp adding an icon to the home screen. Think Basecamp for iPhone.
After all this time i got the answer.
Phonegap uses a WebView to display the HTML content. It is a compiled native App with embedded WebView.
Apple accepts phonegap generated applications but it still not sure if it made it to the AppStore, it depends on what you doing with it. I think simple apps will made it. See also: http://www.phonegap.com/faq
EDIT/UPDATE:
I tried allot of tools/solutions to create crossplatform apps but all of these seem to do the same thing: It's a executable for the specific platform with an embedded browser. None of them compiles HTML to native code.
Flash (Builder) is something different, it requires AIR (can be compiled into the executable). When you using a WebView (only) with Flash, it is overkill because in fact you do not need AIR to display the HTML in a WebView. I think it is better to use phonegap to 'compile' the executable.
I want to start developing IPhone application.
I need to understand something about it - I am working with a graphic designer.
If she supplies the GUI in HTML - will it be easy for me to develop with it?
How does it work? like regular web development?
Apple uses Objective C and Cocoa for iPhone applications. Neither uses HTML; you'll instead be using interactive controls like you'd find in a desktop application. Whether it's easy for you to develop using an HTML mockup will depend entirely on your skills with Cocoa. (In the same way I encourage designers to give me mockups in Photoshop knowing that I can easily build HTML versions of them.)
You might want to start with some of Apple's documentation on iPhone development: http://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action
For GUI development of your own apps you have several options:
Code: UIKit framework in Objective-C
Interface Builder: Tool to click
your GUI together, but the logic
will be coded like in 1 in C, Obj-C
or C++
You can build a HTML gui and
present it in a web view, but for
native apps, this will only bring
you so far.
Oh, and no native Flash on iOS. :-)
You could write an app that uses HTML for its UI - in essence you'd simply be wrapping a webkit widget and driving your app from events generated by that UI. However, that's not going to give you a UI that really takes advantage of the phone.
For that, you need to get down and dirty with Objective C and the Cocoa Touch API for iOS. Another option is using Flash CS5, which is ActionScript based.
Strictly speaking, the answer is no, your HTML skills are not transferrable.
That said, there are two projects that deserve looking into, both of which are about producing native (or "native-ish") apps from HTML and JavaScript. The first is PhoneGap, and the second (which I think is more robust and promising) is called Appcellerator.
Neither of them give you really-and-truly full access to to the iPhone API, but they do allow a significant flattening of the learning curve for people who already have well developed web app skillz.
If you go the native route, bear this in mind: it took me about a month to go from being a web developer to being a slightly competent iOS developer, and six months or so to feel solid and reliable and productive with iOS.
This just saves time.
Since I already have a web applciation.
I can just stick it inside a webview.
The question is: Does it turn off many users? How many users will be disgusted that the entire iPhone app is written in WebView?
I think it's pretty safe to say that most iPhone users are expecting apps to use the power of the iPhone, not just be a portal to a mobile website.
Think about facebook mobile compared to iPhone facebook app. If you're an iPhone user, I'm assuming you'd much rather use the app than a mobile version of the site (or mobile version of the site contained in a WebView in a an app).
That being said, depending on your app, if the mobile version of your app is highly usable, it could be okay...
Just my thoughts...
John Gruber on Daring Fireball just wrote about this today.
From a usability perspective, native apps usually feel better. They may also be more responsive and handle large amounts of data more gracefully. I have a few so-called "apps" on my devices which are just glorified Web apps, and they don't necessarily scream quality.
If you've already done your app, then just ship it. But keep your mind open to feedback from your users.
The answer is almost certainly "no". People care far more about the usability and experience of interacting with your application than what API-supplied widget you use to render it.
I read Apple has begun removing apps that are like this. Well technically, they remove apps they think could be easily implemented as a webapp instead. Yours obviously qualifies ;)
Source: http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/07/apple-cookie-cutter-apps/
EDIT: Apple seems to not mind, according to the Human Interface Guidelines:
If you have a webpage or web application, you might choose to use a web view to implement a simple iPhone application that provides a wrapper for it.
Of course, Apple has a tendency to contradict themselves. ;)
Apple human interface guidelines says this isn't even allowed. I forget where it comes from, but somewhere in the guideline it says apps that are only web views are not allowed. I'm about 95% sure I've seen this. Can anyone confirm?