iPhone "Bookmark to Homescreen" removes cookies and session?

Question

Right now I am developing a Web-based Application, where the User has to login first.

When I open the Page by iPhone Safari, login and restart Safari, I am still logged in (Cookie & Session ID still set).

But when I add this Page with "Add to Home Screen", each Time i click the Icon for that page, I have to login again.

I did not find any information about that. What can I do so my users can set this page to their home screen as icon and still don't have to login each time they open it?

Answer 1

A really simple approach could be to use a unique token in your Bookmark-URL which can serve you as a unique device identifier.

Example: http://myWebApp.com/?token=randomId29238/1

The token can be generated at the server side at opening time of the application in Mobile Safari and before the user is prompted with the "Add to Home Screen" information. The token can then be added to the URL using a quick redirect (…&token=randomToken) or a location hash (…#randomToken).

Whenever the Bookmark is now opened from the Home Screen, the token is sent to your server and you can identify the user's active session. You may also use the token as a permanent session id, but I advise against that because of security concerns.

To allow future logout and login procedures, you can always assign the new sessions to the token.

The token will serve you as a unique device identifier whenever the user will re-open your link from his Home Screen.

Answer 2

There is an easier and, imo, more elegant solution than favo's.

At least under iOS 4.2.1, 5.1.1, 6.0 and 6.1 (I couldn't test other versions), if you extend the lifetime of your session cookie manually, Safari will hold on to the session cookie and even allow sharing of the session between the 'home screen installed' version of your web app and normal visits through Safari itself.

The trick is to do this:

// Start or resume session session_start();   // Extend cookie life time by an amount of your liking $cookieLifetime = 365 * 24 * 60 * 60; // A year in seconds setcookie(session_name(),session_id(),time()+$cookieLifetime); 

For a more elaborate discussion of this strategy you can take a look at my answer of this question:

Maintain PHP Session in web app on iPhone