Native App for a Website

Outline · 10-26-2009, 01:08 PM

Hellooo, I'm new to the site and scrambled here in the hope I'd be able to find some help, or perhaps others in my situation.

Has anyone any experience with creating a native application that works, and communicates with a website's database? My aim is to create an application that replaces a web-app, including user log-ins and commenting - so there is communication with the central server.

I did find this thread;
http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/ip...ve-webapp.html
But alas, it is empty

Any help, or anyone with some experience in this, would be greatly appreciated. I've just started looking at objective c so you'll have to excuse my inexperience

jonahgabriel · 10-26-2009, 02:51 PM

I would suggest creating a webservice to process all your database interaction.

I am working on an app that stores much of it's data in a MSSQL DB and I use a C# .NET webservice to handle all my fetching and storing of data (go go linq2entities!). I use complex request and response objects to pass data back and forth, but I know many people who just use XML to encapsulate their data.

Outline · 10-26-2009, 03:59 PM

Thanks jonah.

Is this concept often done/complex?
Whilst learning objective C I'm slightly worried than I've bitten off more than I can chew with this project.

jonahgabriel · 10-26-2009, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Outline

Thanks jonah.

Is this concept often done/complex?
Whilst learning objective C I'm slightly worried than I've bitten off more than I can chew with this project.

Well, the app I am working on is my first iPhone app, but I am guessing that using a webservice tier to provide access to your DB is pretty common. The only other way I can think of would be to find some 3rd party DB library to talk to your mySQL or msSQL DB directly, however I am not sure how secure these methods are. With a webservice, you can get yourself a SSL cert and make sure all data going to and from your application is encrypted.

Outline · 10-27-2009, 05:21 AM

See, the DB I'm connecting to is a client's and I think we would both prefer it if the connection was secure (the app will deal with users logging in and so on)

Are there any resources available on this?

Outline · 10-27-2009, 07:46 AM

Apologies for the excessive posts, but I'm rather worried about this project and this site really seems the best source for helping me out!

What I'm wanting to do, is to create an application that will run alongside a website - matching your profile, allowing you to comment on the actual site whilst on the move (much like the Facebook application). I understand the advantages a web-app would have over a native app, but it is imperative it is a native application that does this. The database of the site is MS SQLServer, and the code base is asp.net (vb).

Now, after doing a bit of digging, I'm having trouble actually finding examples of this being done, and was hoping someone here would be able to help me/point me in the right direction/tell me to look elsewhere for my project. As I say, I'm new to objective C so ideally I need to look at resources rather than writing it from scratch myself.

jonahgabriel · 10-27-2009, 11:13 AM

If you have a developer that can do asp.net, then a web service shouldn't be hard. On the iPhone side you will need to learn how to create a web service request, then you will need to parse the xml that comes back from the request.

Here is a link to a resource that will help you get started on the iPhone side.