Apple store and Iframe Apps

Question

We recently developed a fairly large application that is heavily reliant on a web server back end, we decided to go the iframed web app route as we felt it would put far less strain on the device. This is basically the equivalent on a banking level app.

When we submitted it to the iTunes Store they basically said no web apps of this nature allowed, so go away!

Here is the question, is there a way that any one knows of to get this app to be allowed by the app store? What is the general accepted method for getting apps of this nature onto iOS devices? I also can not seem to find any info how "web apps" are distributed to Apple devices via ad-hoc, anyone have more info on this?

Answer 1

Apple has started to reject simple applications or application that are just a wrap around a website, the reason used id normally:

2.12: Apps that are not very useful, are simply web sites bundled as apps, or do not provide any lasting entertainment value may be rejected

A solution could be integrate some specific iOS framework: such as Social, AVFoundation, CoreLocation etc

Answer 2

Another approach is to simply install a link to your website onto the device as an icon.

This has the advantage of not requiring any approval by Apple but the user cannot install the shortcut from the App Store - they need to browse to your site and allow the installation by JavaScript.

Answer 3

This has been resolved - turns out Apple App Store does accept apps that have iFrames that allows you to embed websites and distribute them as apps. Although HTML5 iFrames aren't the best way to do this you can still do it if you wish. What happened here was the client this was created for insisted on providing their own icons for the application and it turned out that although the icons appeared correct they were out by 1 or 2 pixels which is why Apple rejected the app. After ignoring the client and providing my own yet, the application was accepted and and went live. A number of updates have been pushed since and all accepted.

As I mentioned earlier, HTML iFrames are not the best way to do this as there are bugs within the way the HTML iFrame + Phonegap solution handles certain features. The best solution for this kind of app on an iOS device is to use a Web View (UIWebView). Here are links to a few tutorials that will help you get this going,

• http://conecode.com/news/2011/05/ios-tutorial-creating-a-web-view-uiwebview/
• http://www.makemegeek.com/uiwebview-example-ios/ (Includes Source Code)

Thanks to those who helped out on this one.