App Store

[kevin plummer]

I know I'm probably jumping ahead here a bit considering I've only had NT6 for a day BUT will we be able to create apps to upload to apple and google app stores? I'm guessing we would need some os specific shell to call our internet page and it would run via that inside the shell?

Anyone have any experience and is the process documented for NT6?


Cheers,

Kev

[Bruce]

This is on the long-range radar Kevin, but still some way off. I'd love someone to jump in and experiment a bit with the process though. things like PhoneGap seem to make this possible - but I've not investigated yet.

cheers
Bruce

[kevin plummer]

11 months on.... anyone used phonegap to wrap an app to the app store?

[rjmiller]

I have setup a Win8 Development account and ordered a couple of Microsoft Surface Tablets with Win8RT.  Will hopefully be able to investigate what is needed to put apps on the Microsoft AppStore.  Nice thing here is once it works and is accepted for Microsoft AppStore it works on both the RT and Intel version of Win8.

[Devan]

Hi Kevin,

I have done a simple HTML/Javascript app (using jQuery mobile) and packaged it up with PhoneGap and deployed on the Apple and Google Play app stores successfully.

The trick with NetTalk sites is the database dependence.  Unfortunately, once you compile your code (via PhoneGap) to work with the various stores, you need to really divorce the front end logic from the back end database stuff COMPLETELY.  The main problem being because the web pages etc. are served up via a Windows executable.  No way we can package that up into an iOS or Android app!

Using a platform like Appcelerator Titanium, you can have PHP and Ruby pre-processing in your code though, so in essence you can convert a PHP/Ruby on Rails specific project into an app package, however still not NetTalk...

Cheers,
Devan

[kevin plummer]

Thanks Devan. Are you saying the app you created and uploaded has no DB functionality? From what you say, it sounds like the app need to work offline. Is that right?

Cheers,

Kevin

[Devan]

Hi Kevin,

That is correct - it was a simple unit conversion app for a client that had no database connectivity at all.

That's not to say you CAN'T have database access.  You just need to make remote AJAX style calls to a hosted back end somewhere within your Javascript in the app.  I suppose one way you could get around this is to have the NetTalk app hosted on a server somewhere, then write a small wrapper app with just a UIWebView that is hard coded to call your NetTalk pages on your server.

However I think that the Apple store in particular frowns upon apps that do this, and it might be VERY difficult to get it past their approval team.  The second downside is that your app will ALWAYS require an internet connection and cannot run 'offline' (i.e. when the user has 'Airplane Mode' on etc.).

Cheers,
Devan