I am building an app that will take most of its content from Facebook i.e. photos, personal info, etc.
I was wondering if anyone can give me advice on which framework would be the most suitable, iUI or Cocoa Touch? What sort of apps would be suitable for the iUI framework and what apps are more suitable using the standard Cocoa Touch?
Native apps run quickly, can be used offline and can make use of more of the device's hardware.
Web apps are more portable (you could make them available on Android as well, for example) and don't have to be vetted for inclusion in the app store.
Related
I'm implementing a cleaner app, and one of its utilities is to keep tracking of applications' - which are installed by App Store - updates. That's fine. But I want to update the apps programmatically without interference from App Store.
Unfortunately I can't find any API to macOS App Store concerning this.
P.S: This is actually implemented in a famous cleaner app. If you would say this is not feasible.
I'm doing some research right now, trying to figure out the core differences in accessing device API's using a hybrid framework like Ionic. As far as I know, there are two ways for accessing an API through HTML5:
via "standard" HTML5 API
via plugin
Since an access using HTML5 runs from inside the webview, I keep reading it is performing worse. That seems to depend on the fact, that you are actually running a webview inside a native app. That's why hybrid is slower than native, cause native does access directly from the context of the app. Where do i put plugins in that scenario? Are plugins designed like small API's to the devices libraries that do access the native features from outside the web view? And what are the benefits in terms of performance and why?
Or am I just getting stuff mixed up and the "standard" HTML5 API access works through a plugin as well?
Thanks in advance!
Kolja
As I am new to PhoneGap and SenchaTouch I want to know the basic information . I understand that sencha Touch is only for web applications accessed from device. I am correct Please clarify my doubt that is 'Is Sencha UI and SenchaTouch only meant for web applications accessed from device or for native apps too?'
Thank you
Lakshmi
Sencha touch is a web toolkit, provides API to create interface looks similar to Native UI. But, however it is still a web application with a native look. However, if you want to crate the native packaging (application build) and if you want to access the device hardware features like camera, sensor then you can go for PhoneGap. PhoneGap can warp the HTML and JavaScript code and helps you to generate native builds for each platforms.
I'm trying to understand how programs like PhoneGap and Adobe Air work, that allow you to 'write once and run anywhere' on mobile platforms. The way I understand it now is that you build your application as a web app using either HTML5, or flash, or I don't know what, and it takes in those files and converts them to the proper types for each mobile OS. Assuming this is correct, what I would like to know is, what the options for developing web apps that are able to be converted into apps are; and what the most popular platforms to use/learn flash, or html5, or JavaScript, or I have no idea what are.
I want to build a web app to deploy across multiple phone platforms, but I don't know where to start. Thanks for the help!
You use tools like PhoneGap to access native device API's through JavaScript. If you don't need access to these API's you can write a HTML5 app and install it using "Add to home screen" etc.
As HTML5 matures, more and more of the device API's are actually directly available through HTML5 (for instance GPS), so depending on what you want to do access it might be in/scheduled to be part of the Device API.
Write once and run anywhere
There are different frameworks that lets you deploy to multiple platforms through the device specific install process. These tools usually work in 2 ways. Run in an embedded browser, or compile to native code.
PhoneGap runs the HTML5 part of your app in an embedded browser. Other tools like MonoTouch actually cross-compiles to native code, so they run on the bare metal.
Cross platform using HTML5
There are plenty of frameworks you can use to make mobile apps with HTML5. These usually help make the app "feel native", and includes abstractions over device specific idioms that differ between the different devices.
Popular frameworks includes Sencha Touch, JQuery Mobile and a bunch of others.
If you want the users to install the app through the AppStore/Market etc. then a solution like PhoneGap is a good option. If you don't care about that you can write your app and add a meta tag like
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes">
and when you add it to the home screen it'll look just like any other app and run in an embedded browser without the browser window etc. You can add offline capabilities using HTML5 and synch when users go on-line etc. all just using HTML5.
Have a look at the Sencha touch app gallery to see what is possible with this technology.
Is it possible via objective-c to find information (such as the names) for other apps installed on an iPhone from my app?
If you mean a "legal" way to do this and get the app in the AppStore, then no, Apple does not provide such an API. And they probably never will, because this will go against the users' privacy.