iOS webApp builder?

[firewood]

What Palm's webOS announcement seems to show is that Apple is missing an easy turnkey method for turning web apps into installable App store apps.

I converted one of my web apps to run locally inside a UIWebView, and it was a hassle. Had to write my own web view wrapper, convert cookie code, rename files, change build operations, etc., etc.

Then to enhance the app to get access to some local device features, I had to use funny URL hacks from Javascript, etc.
If the Javascript source is included as part of a code-signed bundle, there should be a cleaner, and still equally secure, way to do device access.

.

 

[Danneman101]

I second that. Im STILL trying to get a working app that essentially consists of a drill-down-meny that loads various html-pages inside uiwebviews, and its been hell, pardon my french. As a user of everything mac I love its beautiful and intuitive user interface, but as a programmer I loathe its ugly, twisted, unintuitive intestines more than any other platform Ive developed for. How can something thats so beautiful on the outside be so ugly on the inside?

In sum, mixed feelings about mac Thank god for forums like these...though Ive never programmed for any platform with such a small community (Im assuming this is the case rather than that mac-programmers would be less inclined to share their knowledge) since its hard to find answers for even the simplest questions that would be answered in a heartbeat by any other programming-community (for instance, asp.net, c++, c#, flash, java, php). But the iphone sdk it is a pretty new platform, so its understandable. When I move to the Android-plattform after this project it will be interesting to compare the differences.

 

[dejo]

As a user of everything mac I love its beautiful and intuitive user interface, but as a programmer I loathe its ugly, twisted, unintuitive intestines more than any other platform Ive developed for. How can something thats so beautiful on the outside be so ugly on the inside?

In some ways the steep learning curve of iPhone App programming is somewhat of a blessing, I feel. Can you imagine how many more "less-desirable" apps there would be on the App Store if it was so easy a script-kiddie could do it?

...since its hard to find answers for even the simplest questions that would be answered in a heartbeat by any other programming-community

Some of that is because this is all very new for many of us AND, what you may consider a simple question, may not be.

 

[Danneman101]

In some ways the steep learning curve of iPhone App programming is somewhat of a blessing, I feel. Can you imagine how many more "less-desirable" apps there would be on the App Store if it was so easy a script-kiddie could do it?

Lol, I guess thats a valid point, actually Still, the relative elegance of other developer-platforms (especially in terms of code, and in some cases even sdk) enables the community as a whole to release applications of a generally higher quality - if you simplistically equate programmatical sophistication with quality, of course.

Some of that is because this is all very new for many of us AND, what you may consider a simple question, may not be.

Yes, I think youre right about that. Even the most basic things can be extremely cumbersome on the iPhone sdk. It will be interesting, however, to compare the experiences from both iPhone sdk- and Android-development when the time comes, but even then I guess it would not be completely fair to the iPhone sdk since there no doubt exists less Obj-C-programmers than Java-programmers in the world.

 

[firewood]

In some ways the steep learning curve of iPhone App programming is somewhat of a blessing

It's not so much a steep learning curve I mind, but any poorly maintainable "hackiness" required when an elegant solution isn't available, even if that elegant solution requires a very steep learning curve.


.