iPhone web application development

Question

I would like to create a website that is iPhone-friendly ... that looks like an iPhone app, but is really on the server, just like Gmail for iPhone.

My understanding is that this is how Apple originally had planned for application development to happen. However, I can't find documentation on how to do this. Is there a link or something?

Answer 1

I can recomment the iPhoneWebDev group.

There you can find loads of questions, answers and tips regarding the web app development for iPhone.

Answer 2

Here is a link to a list of some great resources when developing web applications taylored to the iphone: Apple Dev Resources

Answer 3

I suggest using iWebKit. It has some nice examples on how to develop such applications and it makes it really easy.

You can choose your backend to be anything you like (PHP, django, ASP...)

Answer 4

If you'd like to have some of the iPhone's libraries (geo, accelerometer, vibration, etc) available to your webapp via a Javascript API, then you can roll your webapp into a native iPhone app using PhoneGap.

Answer 5

without knowing if you're in a Windows or a Mac environment, I can point to both.

• on Windows use Aptana with iPhone plugin to develop iPhone webapps (I guess they remove it, you can use the iPhone plugin with the Eclipse)
• on a Mac, use the XCode.

There are plenty of ways to accomplish the same propose, because I do .NET code and mostly ASP.NET I prefer the Visual Studio environment and with that I use the iUI javascript library that gives me the ability to provide iPhone webapp like, and use the PhoneGap library to get the most of the core feature that, as you can imagine, are not available for webapp.

I also recommend that you register in the Apple Develop Community, the Safari Developer Center (witch includes the WebApps Dev Center), for this, it is free, and you can submit your webapp to Apple through that Developer Center.

Check out some links, specially this one that tells you a lot about the iPhone and WebApps.

If you want to get your hands in a book, I recommend (ISBN 0470251557) Professional iPhone and iPod touch Programming: Building Applications for Mobile Safari (Wrox Professional Guides) it is exactly about developing webapps with iUI.

Answer 6

Here are some resources to get you started:

• Safari Dev Center
• The IUI Framework
• PhoneGap

Answer 7

If you are on a Mac, the IDE Dashcode that ships with the apple developer tools has all the required templates for doing this sort of thing really easily.

Answer 8

For iPhone web application, try using jQTouch. Its a great tool to make an iPhone web application quite faster. Try the following book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0042X9CHI

Its a nice book that teaches how to develop Web Applications for Smartphones using PHP, MySQL and jQTouch.