I found on few places on the forum some ways to have the app downloaded directly from a web page and not to use Apple store for the app delivery.
Is there a way to embed that functionality in a web app ?
The reason for trying to use that is that the project is small and for in house only so no need to submit it to apple store and have it on the app store for us only and as well i don`t want to pay 1000$ / year just to have the app there, or i guess to use the company deployment features.
So the project is basically one server with a web app, 4 ipads max 20 ipads that will have to use an app trough an api and to connect to the web app and exchange data, all internal use, nothing on public domain .
How i can handle updates in this case ? just put the version in the payload in that xml file and check on the app if there is a new version or not on the server ? and if yes to download that ?
Not trying to skip apple but it`s little bit overkilling to have apple review/update / publish and the time we loose doing that for an internally managed app.
You can make a web app that runs directly from the server. I have a few apps like that. You just format the interface so it works well on a phone or tablet. There are examples with Xojo that show how to select a certain webpage in the app so it’s sized properly for an iPad or iPhone. You can also put the app directly onto the home screen of the phone or ipad so that you launch it like an app. Works really well for certain types of apps where the user needs to be online anyway, or where you want to be able to rapidly deploy updates etc.
Thanks Kevin but does not work in my case, here is the catch , does a web app works offline on the iPad ? NO , so that is my case where the iPads dont have always internet connection plus the access to the api is via a VPN so if that is down the whole system is down which i dont want , it is more for reference and central update so in this case the web app part does not help.
I`ll check once i reach home to see if i can handle that file some how in the special url and serve the app and the provisioning file.