I want to update this thread, for those of you who might be considering doing Apps with your site(s).

I wrote the App (above) for my use. I bought the $99 Apple iOS Developer membership (annual!) so that I could put my App on my iPhone (and/or iPad). Unlike Android Apps, with Apple you can't just put an App on your own phone/tablet by yourself. You need a Developer membership key, and follow a specific procedure to plug your phone/table into a Mac and then upload the file.

An iOS Developer certificate allows you to put the iOS App on co-worker's devices, BUT that also assumes a cord connection.

If the App has the slightest hint of being "adult", you're not going to get approved for the Apple App Store. There is a lengthy application approval process for Apple iOS Apps, and many (most?) don't get approved on the first, or even few, tries. It has to have a useful purpose, it has to conform to programming standards, the icons have to be close to rigid standards, right down to the type of border on the icons. No adult type content or click-throughs.

Android Apps can be put on your own phone/tablet. Getting it on the various Android marketplace sites is not as hard as Apple's iOS App Store, but again there is a threat of removal for adult content...

iOS Apps need to be built in a clunky, non-GUI software called XCode. Android Apps are built similarly in Eclipse. Neither is easy to install, configure or run. Online Tutorials are often based on frequently updated old versions.


I would suggest to anyone thinking of doing an App: First build the "App" as an html5 webpage. See if what you want to do, can be done, and really needs to be done, as an App - as a webpage first.

Think of an App - that colorful icon on your phone or tablet - as a "bookmark" to a webpage. Do you really need to spend extra time and money building an App, in a clunky non-GUI software, then going thru a ridiculous approval process, when a little html5 does the same thing in a web browser?

You won't know until you prototype it as a webpage.

Then there's the matter of updating the App. With a webpage, you upload a new .html (.php/java) page and the viewer sees the new page milliseconds later. With an App, the worst case scenario is that the user needs to download a new version of the App, the almost worst case scenario is that you upload new data for the old App to read, but the user's App on his phone/tablet, doesn't want to go get the new data.

I've had this happen inconsistently - and forcing it to "refresh" means deleting the App and re-installing it, something you don't want your users to have to do.

I wrote my Map App (above) with data from Europe and the UK. Worked great, as I traveled in Berlin and a dozen different cities in the UK. Refreshing the App and its data was hard, and inconsistent. I wrote most of the App myself, after studying the concept, and getting some basic framework from an App (self-) Service Bureau. I found the Service Bureau to be a bit of a scam - putting on a bit of a dog and pony show to attract paying members, but most of what they offered in terms of tutorials were silly, and what they offered in terms of service and support was, well, nothing.

While it might be cute to say you have an App, but try a webpage prototype first.