A number of apps I build are catalogs.
Consider this website that showcases housing http://www.zuccalahomes.com.au/search.php
I get a number of requests to build iPhone/iPad apps that have a search system that effectively displays data like this in the app. Users search, click on results, see some images etc Most of the apps need to load the data fast, that is, not via http requests. So we have to build a CMS and turn it into a SQL Lite database which is collated with the images, compiled into the App and placed on the App Store for each release. Plus there might be some CMS based general pages.
This seems like it must be a very common development cycle. It would be great if there were some tools that helped automate this process somewhat.
If this was a website I would consider these tools to be a good abstract CMS like Umbraco or Expression Engine. I could partially use these tools for the CMS side, but then there's a massive translation system I have to write to convert the database to SQL Lite. And no real help on the front end side of the app development.
Anyone have a suggestion (or two)?