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Is there a tool/approach to automatically generate an app on an iOS or Android device from HTML5 or jQuery Mobile code so that the app loads/runs entirely on the mobile device itself, without requiring web access, and without the corresponding delay in load time (ie not a webapp)?
I have looked into a whole range of tools for this (HTML5, jQuery Mobile, trigger.io, phonegap, Appcelerator, others) and read lots of documentation and stackoverflow and other forum posts. However, I haven't yet been able to find the answer to this very basic question.
Many of the tools out there (eg trigger.io) boast that they are creating 'native' apps. However, when I built a sample iOS app to try to answer the question above for myself, the app will only run properly when the device is connected to the web, leading me to assume that it is actually a hybrid or webapp with some native components/functionality.
I suppose that for folks who have been developing apps for some time this is supposed to be obvious, but for somebody starting from fresh it is not.
Are the existing tools able to essentially translate HTML5/jQuery Mobile into objective C, or just linke to web content?
Is it possible to create a mobile app using the easy-to-use, cross-platform tools that exist (I especially like jQuery Mobile and Codiqa as I was able to build a prototype so quickly) that runs fully locally on an iOS or Android device, or do you end up having to manually code the app (eg in Objective C) if you want it to be fully local to the device (not a webapp)?
Thanks
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Some cross-compilers can allow the creation of application targeting both Android and iOS, but only HTML5 can run in mobile operating systems and on the Internet in browser.
Yes, you can. You would do this by making a webpage, and attaching that webpage to a UIWebView. You will still need Xcode and other iOS developer tools to work the minimal code you need to write.
As HTML5 is an accepted Web standard, it can create apps that are compatible not only with mobile devices but also desktop and notebook browsers, for a seamless experience across all a user's devices.
The same HTML5 app will work on different mobile operating systems, whether that's iOS, Android, Windows Phone or Blackberry; the upshot of this is that the cost of developing the app is much lower than creating native apps for each OS.
Yes - Trigger.io apps bundle all your HTML/CSS/JS into a natively packaged app - there's no internet access required for it to work.
Of course, if your app will only fully function if it has access to remote services, then the experience will degrade, but you can handle that with forge.is.connection.connected.
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What you are looking for is the Intel XDK. http://xdk-software.intel.com/
You can build, emulate, debug, test and publish your HTML5 code as native apps directly from the XDK, for iOS, Android and Windows Mobile.
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