» Mobile App

Use your existing skills to create a fully featured mobile web application.

This theme is more than just a mobile website template, it includes 10 mobile-optimised block templates and 1 BONUS mobile photo gallery block.

Mobile web applications are in high demand worldwide, so if you're a designer or developer and don't offer this service to your clients already, you now can! And best of all, it's a very lucrative market. Mobile web apps are usually charged at US$12k-$95k (depending on project scope). With this theme + Concrete5, you can build a professional web app in just minutes rather than hours or days.

Download from the Concrete5 Marketplace (Price: $79)

Benefits:

  • You can use your existing C5 skills to build it.
  • Unlike native apps, you only build once and can deploy on multiple handsets (eg. iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc)
  • No need to wait for approval from Apple to publish mobile app - instant deployment.
  • Central installation (unlike downloadable apps), so you update once and all users access the latest version
  • Users can add a "bookmark" to the mobile device home screen. The icon can be customised along with a "loading" screen. When a web app is run.
  • From the "bookmark" it opens in a full screen browser and looks just like a native app (no browser navigation buttons).

Features:

  • Works on all mobile devices including iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile. (Any device that uses a mobile web browser compatible with Webkit. For non-Webkit browsers, some page transitions may not work.)
  • Custom block templates for popular blocks: form, guestbook, image, login, next/previous, pagelist, rss, search and Youtube. So these blocks look just like an iPhone app.
  • BONUS mobile gallery block included which looks just like the iPhone "Photo" app, with swipe action to navigate between photos.
  • If you are experienced in development with C5, you can create your own block templates for almost any other block.
  • AJAX page loading supported (using a custom page attribute).
  • You can easily add a "back" button (using a custom page attribute).
  • Preload selected pages for super-fast loading times and transitions between pages (using a custom page attribute).
  • You can easily hide the toolbar for a specific page (using a custom page attribute).
  • Automatic display of animated message encouraging users to "bookmark" the web app (add to home screen).
  • Preliminary support for iPad optimized interface. See a 2-pane layout on an iPad device and automatically see only 1 pane on an iPhone - no need to change your site content.See demo. Additional features will be built on this in upcoming releases.

Limitations:

  • Since the web app runs through the mobile browser security is inherently stricter compared to a native app.
  • The web app can't take advantage of some hardware features (like camera, accelerometer, etc). The only hardware feature compatible with mobile browsers (and HTML5) is the GPS - which is useful for making a map-style app.
  • Although mobile web browsers try to do everything that desktop web browsers do, they just can't.
  • Hardware processing power on a mobile device is far less than a desktop, so be cautious with processor-intensive scripts (such as jQuery animations, slideshows, etc).
  • Mobile apps tend to be more simple in structure compared to large websites, so use the "keep it simple" rule when building with this theme.

A special thanks to David Kaneda, Jonathan Stark and Thomas Yip. This is based the jqTouch jQuery library (BeeDesk's fork), but with several significant improvements and additions.

Demonstration Video:

Live Demo

The demonstration web app is best viewed on an iPhone or Android-powered mobile device.

Alternatively, if you use a Mac, the iOS Simulator (part of Xcode) is just as good. As a last resort, you can view it in Safari or Google Chrome and just resize your browser window to resemble a small mobile screen (but please note some formatting and animations may not be fully compatible).

Support:

If you have a question about this theme, please make contact via the Concrete5 website.

See answers to common questions about this add-on.

Installation:

This theme is available for instant installation via the Concrete5 Marketplace. You can also choose to download and "manually" install the theme.

 

Extras:

If you would like us to install the theme for you, we offer this service for $20.

Theme customisation is also available upon request. Request a quote.

 

Power Tips:

Read some handy tips to get the most out of the Mobile App theme.

 

Extra Videos:

Building with the Mobile App theme: Part I

Download the PDF from Part I

Building with the Mobile App theme: Part II

See answers to common questions about this add-on