My web application run's nicely on every smartphone. An additional native iOS/Android app would have the advantage of being available over the app stores and more visible to users. But I find it unnecessary work to do everything from scratch in all the development environments.
Instead I could make an app that just implements a web browser and just shows the website. Does someone know if this is allowed by Apple/Google at all? I have heard that at least Microsoft seems to have nothing against it in their Windows Phone market.
Thanks
# quape, apple will reject the application made with the idea you are thinking so it will be of no use to move in this direction.
Apple will simply reject the application for lack of functionality...
I have absolutely no idea about Google's policy on that question.
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I searched thoroughly for this and found info on preventing an iFrame, but not an Android or iOS app.
Basically, some blockhead decided to embed my website into his/her Android app and "enhance" it. I assume it's <webview>? (not experienced with Android yet)
Thought about claiming via copyright, but shutting it down via code would be better.
How do I stop them from doing this on an Android app? Is it with JS I can block it or block requests from the app?
Thanks
If you are hosting a public website there is no way you can do this.
You could try and do user agent detection but that's just a hack that can easily be changed on the app developers part and will also hurt users who are simply using Android phones from accessing your website.
It would be best to reach out to the developer. You should also realize that client side manipulation of CSS, etc. is not forbidden so really it would just come down to if he is claiming something to be his own in the copyright sense.
So we're developing using NodeJS, angular, html5 and all that jazz. But we want to have a more native app experience. So we're going to use ionic. However, instead of building the app as a local app and pulling in the data we want, they've decided to just build a web app and point the native app to the wep apps url.
So it's a glorified browser that looks like a native app.
Do we lose the ability to harness the devices hardware? Such as hardware acceleration and access to the devices tools like the camera. If you could provide a link to an article detailing the cons of this approach, that would be fantastic.
#Chauncey, If you are using phonegap, you are a liberty to use any of the hardware devices you have permission to use, as long as you have the plugins loaded.
However, both Google Play and Apple iTunes frown on having Apps that are just glorified browser. There is another misconception. Phonegap Apps can have as much look and feel as native Apps. With Ionic and others, those things are done for you, and hidden from you. So with Ionic, your native look and feel is only as good as Ionic gives you.
Oh, and your request for for links to articles lgtfy --Jesse
Pointing on an external URL is not a good idea.
A mobile app should have all images/css/scripts on device in order to shrink network access.
That you want to do will be really slow and does not offer a good user experience. In this way, your application can be rejected by Apple when you will submit it to AppStore.
Cordova/Phonegap needs to run some scripts at start and then raises events. You can't use device specific hardware before that. And if you redirect the main frame to an URL, you will overwrite these scripts ...
I am new to android development, I have a website that is for online shopping and I want to make an android app so the smart phone users can also access it. It will use something like PHP post/get, JSON, JavaScript to get values from server and submit forms from app. My question is after doing all these, mean HTTP Connection and all that, is there any need to make a special website for mobile device too, that will be compatible with mobile device? or no need of this, just to open it in mobile app? I have googled it but can't find something useful.
I think most of visitors will visit the normal site instead of installing a unknown app.
It's your own choose, if i have the the choice i would choose both (web and app).
I think it's important to have a user and mobile friendly website.
At least you could make your website responsive so that user have the choice whether they will install a Native app or use the 'web' app.
I've met the same question.
Apps are good-looking and functional.
But the thing is, especially in China, almost everybody around me uses "Wechat" as a daily app. The most important thing Wechat can provide is an entry. By establishing an official accounts, customers can be easily linked to your mobile website. And 1)it's way more convenience than Apps. 2)Mobile website has a less developing cost than an App. 3)With HTML5 spreading to mobile terminals, the interfaces can be cool and the function can be amazing.
So, for middle/little companies, I personally recommend mobile website.
Our website is mobile ready and provides service to end uses. Someone has developed a wrapper application around the website and published on playstore. I checked the web request header from this wrapper application and from mobile browser and they are identical.
Is there any other way to differentiate if the request is from webview of native application or mobile browser?
Unfortunately for your case, a WebView is indistinguishable from the default mobile browser. So I believe that you have a legal problem here, not a technical one.
As #Daniel says, you may want to appeal to Google to have the app removed from the Play Store.
Since there seems to be some market out there for a native version, perhaps you should look at providing your own. If you provide some extra added value in a native app, there would be less incentive for someone else to wrap your web app.
you can according to User-Agent， of course, you can custom User-Agent
I work at a large company that is looking at building apps for internal use only (iPhone/iPad). We are looking for a SIMPLE way of creating apps that essentially are just a web browser with a predefined URL and no address bar/tabs, etc. Essentially a very dumbed down browser with a custom logo. What is the easiest way to accomplish this?
We would obviously be distributing these oursevlves and they wouldn't be available in the App Store, so app guidelines aren't an issue. We are on Windows boxes and are Java/Web developers so we'd rather not get into too much C sharp if at all possible, fyi. Basically it'd be nice if the tool (if one exists), were to allow us to give it a URL, an icon image, and it builds the app from there.
And while we are starting out with Apple devices, we need to be cross platform compliant with whatever tools we use because I can imagine the day when they decide to buy Android or WindowsPhone devices later on.
MobiOne? PhoneGap? Appcelerator Titanium SDK? Can either of these do what we need? Something else?
A big 'No' for MobiOne. I bought it for 99 dollars. As they advertised, I was able to create a static app within hours. But that's pretty much what MobiOne can do. The moment you start using html, javascript or even audio, all sorts of problem seem to creep up. And there is no support in their forums either. My basic question about using the audio player remains unanswered for a month now.
Here is the worst part:
The tool has a poorly built emulator. Often times, my app worked fine in the emulator but failed to run when deployed to a real device. And at times, i have seen the vice versa too.
Since then, I switched over to PhoneGap(which is free). It took me 2 days to just set my environment right. But once I had the environment setup, it took only minutes to deploy my app in to a virtual device.
Looking at your requirement, I would say that your safe bet is PhoneGap.
I don't have a working knowledge in Titanium but I read in a lot of forums that it supports less platforms when compared to PhoneGap. Titanium seems to give a more native feel to the app but that also means you cannot port it to multiple platforms without changing the code.
Apple may reject your app if all it does is wrap a web site in a WebView. You need to have more functionality in your app than just loading a web page.
From the app review guidelines for iOS:
2.12 Apps that are not very useful, are simply web sites bundled as apps, or do not provide any lasting entertainment value may be rejected
You would need to add additional screens to the app like an about page and a contact us page in order for your app not to be rejected.
As you say you know JavaScript, look into appcelerator.com it allows you to build cross platform apps and only writing your code once.
I would re-evaluate your reason for wanting to create these projects as an app in the first place. What app functionality do you want that you don't have now with your web page? You didn't mention anything in your question that would indicate this needs to be an app.
On Apple devices, you could create an icon that points to a web site. You could define the pages in a way that hides the address bar. Lastly, the web pages could easily be cross-platform already.
Wrapping this into an app would just possibly complicate the process. You may need to deploy updated app code to the device, where a refresh in a browser works just as well.