Is it possible to create, package and successfully submit HTML5 apps to the app store? [closed]

Question

Hello everyone and thanks for reading...

I'm a Mono / Web developer and was recently talking to an Apple guy regarding development on the iPhone and iPad. Now I know that Objective C / XCode is the heavy hitter for development on these platforms; however, I'm pretty sure he mentioned (and showed me) a HTML5 application he had created that while basic was mildly functional on his iPad.

Skip ahead a couple of weeks and I've been asked to check out the feasibility of taking of chunks of a client's 'pay-per-view' website and creating a offline version that can be purchased via (and presumably distributed by ) the Apple app store. Anyhoo, I've been trying to find 100% confirmation that this is possible and I'm turning to dev boards to see whether I can get a definitive answer to the following...

Can I create a HTML5 application (essentially an offline portion of a client's website) for the iPhone / iPad that can be uploaded and distributed by the Apple app store?

And (assuming the above is OK) are there are restrictions or things I need to be aware of, i.e. it is fairly content rich but will include images and poss a few small videos.

Thanks

SC

Answer 1

Well the answer is yes and no ;-) You cannot distribute web apps via the app store. You have to set up your own infrastructure and server to do so. However what you can do is the following: write a very simple application consisting of a single browser window (called a WebView in Objective-C) and bundle all the HTML, CSS and JS files with it. Then you can use this browser to browse your local content. With a bit more efford you could also implement updating the content and recaching it on your phone over the web.

So the bottom line is: no pure web app can be distributed via the app store, a web app wrapped in an objective-C application can be done.