How hard is it to convert a blog-like website into an iPhone/Pad app?

Asked by Qingu (21185

) February 1st, 2010

From my initial research I am guessing the answer is “way harder than Qingu is capable of doing himself,” so this question comes with sub-questions:

1. Do you know of any reputable companies that could handle such a thing?

2. Price range?

The website in question is basically a Wordpress blog with a bunch of pages instead of posts. The pages are hyperlinked together like the pages of a book to form a story. There’s also some javascript show/hide plugins. But there’s nothing preventing it from being a self-contained app.

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3 Answers

It actually wouldn’t be that hard. There is a simple way to use WebKit to make a page be displayed within a app. If all you want is basically Safari with a custom icon the uses your site as a startpage it wouldn’t be hard. It could be done by someone good in a few hours. I really don’t understand why you would want to do this unless you want to charge for the app.

jrpowell (40562

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I basically want the app to contain the entire content of the website so you could read all of it without having to be connected to the intarwebs (which tends to suck on 3G iphones anyway).

And also for $$$ I suppose.

Qingu (21185

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PhoneGap can turn HTML/Javascript into an iPhone app. It’s not going to be fully automatic or anything, but should be relatively simple. Tutorials like this one show how to get started.

StellarAirman (2902

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