I'm trying to make an in-browser web appliction for mobile phones. We started with an Android system, because it was the most open for development.
Now I want to make it for all the other OS's too, and I've heard that we can make a website into an app. We saw this live on a IPad and a Android tablet.
If you open it on your tablet they ask "Would you make an app from this website?". If you do this them make a kind of link to you website. What google maps does is that they ask for permission to get your GPS data. We want to do the same with Bluetooth.
My question now is, does anybody know a good example where I can take a look how to do it?
Also I want to know if its possible to do it all in HTML, or do I need a webview layer above it?
It looks like you are asking for Apache PhoneGap
PhoneGap is a mobile development framework produced by Nitobi, purchased by Adobe Systems. It enables software programmers to build applications for mobile devices using JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS3, instead of device-specific languages such as Objective-C
or other Multiple phone web-based application framework
Related
I have a server hosting a website that is HTML5 compatible. I can access the site from my android phone via chrome just fine but i don't want the app to look as if its running within a chrome browser. I want it to look like a stand alone application.
I've taken a peak at Cordova, and PhoneGap but it just feels like what i'm trying to do should be much simpler and without need of a framework so to speak.
How can i package my website for delivery to android/ios so it runs without look like it is inside the native browser?
Thanks!
On Android there is Progressive Web Apps
https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps/
Other than that you'll have to use a framework to make real apps like the one you mentioned.
I am on a research and our panel cannot quite understand that I am developing a mobile app using html5.
Does mobile app means a native app of a certain platform (ios / android)?
If the app can be accessed in a browser, does that mean this is not a mobile app? are there any articles/journals/researches that prove my claim that html5 applications nowadays are being considered as a mobile app today?
From my epx, native apps are basically apps written/developed on the specific device/platform
Eg: Native app for android would be using Java, while iOS would be Objective C,
while mobile-apps in this case are basically web-apps, which works cross platform.
HTML5 is unique in a sense that it is able to simulate certain functions or accessing device hardware without being developed in a native environment.
If you are accessing the app via a web-browser on you mobile phone, most-likely its a web-app.
Most sites will have different layouts for different platform, for example when using your Desktop or Laptop, you will have a different view compared to using your Mobile Phone.
Some points that I hope you find useful:
Can it be published on the App Store/Google Play?
Think it's safe to say, most people expect a mobile app to be found in them.
Note that, from personal experience, Apple has rejected apps that are just simple copies of webpages.
Common sentiment
It's not very useful if a journal says something that the general public does not agree. Ask around, ideally people that are the target segment/market of your app, see if they agree on the definition of an App.
Many popular Apps using HTML5
There are many Apps on the App Store/Google Play that uses HTML5 as it's main development language. Facebook is the most visible one, though they went back to native for UX/performance reasons. (See: http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/11/mark-zuckerberg-our-biggest-mistake-with-mobile-was-betting-too-much-on-html5/)
Phonegap
Is a quick way to get HTML5 apps "into" a native app. If you are already not using it.
All the best with your panel!
Mobile Apps Are not always native apps. Mobile apps can be Native, Mobile-Web or Hybrid. The Mobile-Web which is basically written in HTML5, CSS and Javascript.
Native Mobile Apps are Specific to a platform or Operating System written in most of the time a particular language examples are writing an android apps in JAVA and an IOS app in Objective C.
While Hybrid Apps are combinations of Both Native and web sometimes puree mobile-web but wrapped in a native shell. They simply runs on a native widget more like a Browser. For android its uses WebView
I want to develop an application which works both in a regular browser and as an Android app. Both seem suitable but would I be right in saying if I went with Phone Gap, deploying the same html content as a regular, server hosted website is not trivial and would require modification? Also, are multi page applications not desirable in a Phone Gap wrapper?
Are there any alternatives I should consider? I'm surprised someone hasn't already written an Android wrapper with all the hardware access wiring done already. Or have they?
There are few things you should know,
If you are going to publish your app also on iOS, you can't use server hosted website for your app.
All of your basic functionality must stand on your app assets, is one of the iOS guidelines, and its also make-sense for best ui performance (both iOS & Android).
Use server-side wisely, when you want to fetch data which have to be up-to-date.
there are some new mobile browser features which will be available in the future, that allow your website to use the device hardware functions:
Device API on W3C
Good luck dude ;)
You can try with jquery mobile framework:
http://www.jquerymobile.com
It is jquery based framework for developing web apps that works on standard web and on multiple mobile devices (with cordova)
would like to build an app that can run on any of the new PAD's hitting market.
I don't want to limit our users to a specific OS.
What is the best solution to allow all these pads to use our app.
The app needs to be able to run offline.
Thanks!
You could write a web application and use HTML5 for off-line caching.
http://diveintohtml5.ep.io/offline.html
Alternatively, you could try and use Titanium Mobile.
http://www.appcelerator.com/products/titanium-mobile-application-development/
You should also spend some time reading this discussions:
is-there-a-multiplatform-framework-for-developing-iphone-android-applications
technology-to-write-iphone-blackberry-and-android-phone-at-the-same-time
Have a look a MonoTouch, it will let you write all your logic in C# over all the main mobile platforms. However you still need custom UI code for each platform, but as least it will all be in C#.
(Better then having to use C#, Java and Objective C)
You could use Adobe Air that could works in most of Mobile/Tablet operating system Iphone,Android and Windows 7. but im not sure if Apple will approve your App if you plan to released to the App market.
Another way to think about it is to create an HTML resources and then integrated in away seems native to the system its more work but you will have a higher chance to get approved from apple and the app look more integrated with the OS .
The obvious -- and currently free -- answer is to use Adobe FlashBuilder to develop iOS apps. There is an iPhone and iPad emulator included. This does not use xcode, but you get most of the features to work with, and you can also develop Android apps from the same set of code. Further, with minor modifications for mouse usage, you can also have the apps run on any desktop as an Air app.
Adobe's website has detailed directions for how to create iOS apps on Windows with Adobe Air, though the most useful instructions for Air are from untoldentertainment.com.
I have been developing an Android application for about two months now, and the guy I'm writing it for wants me to use this instead of the android SDK so we can deploy the application for multiple smart phones: http://rhomobile.com/
he says you can write the application in one language and it can be deployed for most smart phones. Has anyone used this website to do something similar? Any advantages or disadvantages I should know about and tell him? Maybe someone could give me a better explanation on what this really does.
I'm current a one man army. He wants the application out for most smart phones but can afford to hire more developers.
Rhomobile will start up a small webserver on your phone and then show a webview that is directed to this webserver. You are able to write all the application logic in ruby in a way you would do it if you would write a web app that is deployed on a real web server. Rhomobile uses CSS etc. to have the app look look a little bit like a native app.
If you know Ruby you will get an App fast but it will look crappy and the user experience will be crappy too. A similar framework is appcelerator titanium they will let you write the app in Java Script and then compile it into a mix of javascript, webview and native components that run on an Iphone and on an Android phone and titanium has a much nicer user experience then rhomobile.
Visit their pages and test some of the apps that they are promoting as showcase for their frameworks.
As many developers writing apps in Objective C have learned using HTML for the view and styling with CSS styling libraries is a great way to create attractive native apps. Rhomobile's Rhodes uses this approach as well. We used to let people use whatever CSS they wanted and they could choose to use IUI, JQTouch, IWebKit, WebApp.net or any other library along with Rhodes. The best external apps all seemed to use JQTouch for styling and animated transitions.
Recently we decided to ship with our own fork of JQTouch (which we made work on Android) in order to make this even easier. The recent Rhodes master branch created apps with JQTouch builtin makes such attractive apps even easier to build, as the stylesheets are included with Rhodes scaffold-generated apps.