Requirements for web development for iPhone Mac/Windows?

Question

I am planning to make an iPhone web application and I just wanted to know what is required for web development?

Can I do the web development on a windows machine? Does Apple provide any iPhone plugin so that we can develop web application using Windows?

What is required for developing on a Mac?

Regards,

Amit

Answer 1

I presume you are talking about creating a web application designed to be used from an iphone.

The iphone uses safari as its browser. You can download this for use on windows and it should give you an accurate representation of how your app will look when rendered on an iphone. However in order to test how well your app performs on the phone, and if it really is usable using the touch screen the I think the only way to be really sure is to test using the iPhone.

You can use safari for windows to test the rendering but for your final tests you need to use a real iphone in order to understand how your users will experience it.

Answer 2

Check out these three apple sites:

http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/codinghowtos/Mobile/GraphicsMediaAndVisualEffects/index.html

http://developer.apple.com/safari/

http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/navigation/CodingHow-Tos.html

I would check out these pages thoroughly, and also at a minimum, I'd download safari for mac or windows.

Yes, you can develop it on windows. They are just web apps.

For mac or windows, latest safari and a public website is probably all you need. Check out google app engine for a good free development site that supports a database/datastore. www.appspot.com

Also, you can look at the webapps on a regular computer. http://www.apple.com/webapps/travel/staycation.html

http://wsidecar.apple.com/cgi-bin/nph-reg3rdpty2.pl/product=25536&cat=94&platform=osx&method=sa/

http://www.apple.com/webapps/games/

Answer 3

? If you are gonna build a web application, the application runs on the browser. To use your application the user use Safari (on the iPhone). Apple doesn't control web applications.

If you mean, embed your web application, INSIDE a native iPhone application, you need a Mac to build the wrapper, for the core application you can use whatever system you want.

May I suggest to take a look at phonegap (if you are looking to iPhone app).

Answer 4

If you are making a web application, you can download Safari for Windows and view it there.

You can also use Joe Hewitt's iUI framework to make your app look and feel all iPhone-y.