Will a Safari-based app for iPhone be accepted to the iTunes store?

Question

I'm about to begin development of an iPhone app. The app itself is fairly basic, and I want a speedy turnaround time.

I'm a web developer myself, specialising in traditional web technologies such as PHP/MySQL; I have no experience in Objective-C.

My plan was to create a very basic iPhone app that is just a Safari service that passes some basic variables to a URL. That URL is the app built in PHP and housed on my servers, this way I can create the app very quickly without needing to outsource anything.

My question is whether apps of this nature would be accepted into the iTunes store, or would they be out-right rejected? Anyone's experiences or comments are very welcome.

Thanks

Answer 1

Should be fine - its called a web app and there is software out there that will do just this for you.

All you need to do is to make a UIWebView and put your web app into it.

Also look at http://jqtouch.com. That gives you some idea of what you can do web-side. :)

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Answer 2

Yes, it will be accepted as long as you stick with HTML, CSS, JS and Obj-C on the client side. You still need to wrap it in an iPhone app. In my experience, the best way to this is to use http://www.phonegap.com/ or a similar framework. You'll have the option of deploying you app through iTunes or as a regular web app (you users will be able to create a link to your web app right on their springboards)

Answer 3

It really depends upon your application...These kinds of application have been approved in the past but again I am saying that it depends on many factors. Try to test your app in every possible manner and also keep in mind the memory issues.

Best of luck!!!

Answer 4

It SHOULD be accepted, granted you test test test and make it look just like a native application. Also you'll have to make sure that your server is never down, or if the application can't reach it just display an error message. You also have to keep in mind that there are a lot of iPod Touch users, and they don't have access to the internet all the time. Which means that chances are you'll get a BUNCH of 1 star reviews

Answer 5

It could go either way, but mind bullet 12.3 from the App Store Review Guidelines:

12.3 Apps that are simply web clippings, content aggregators, or a collection of links, may be rejected

In my opinion, a simple UIWebView wrapper around your web site comes close to the definition of a simple web clipping. Your approval may very well hinge on your luck in drawing a sympathetic reviewer.