Chapter 2

Working with Core Technologies

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER:

  • Adding video to your app
  • Discovering basic JavaScript coding techniques
  • Working with functions and arrays

Although a native iPhone app is built entirely in Objective-C, an iPhone web app is composed of a variety of core technologies that serve as interlocking building blocks. HTML provides structure for the user interface and application data. CSS is used for styling and presentation. JavaScript and Ajax provide the programming logic used to power the app. And, depending on the app, it may have a back-end application server, such as Java or PHP.

Books on programming native iPhone apps often have a primer chapter on the basics of Objective-C to make sure everything is speaking the same language, so to speak. And, although it’s outside the scope of this book to include a complete primer on the core web technologies you will work with to develop an iPhone web app, I do want to explore some of the key technologies you need to be sure you know about in order to be successful.

The information in this chapter is presented with the assumption that you at least know the basics of HTML and at least have a working knowledge of CSS. Most of the material covered here is about the scripting logic layer. However, first I want to highlight the HTML 5 tags that Safari on IOS supports for embedding media into your web app.

EXPLORING HTML 5 MEDIA ELEMENTS

In the early days of the iPhone, working with video inside of ...

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