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Show HN: Automatically convert a website to Android and iOS

gonative.io

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Re: Show HN: Automatically convert a website to Android and iOS

#52
post #39
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As @nkozyra says, understanding what all the links do is hard, however there are automated ways of converting common types of webpage layouts into structure data for native presentation. For example, our startup (shameless plug) utilizes a computer vision technology to automatically extract structured data from articles, images, products, and videos, etc: http://diffbot.com/products/automatic/ . These can then be use…

Out of curiosity, I'd love to learn more about your stack. Any blog posts handy?

C++/Java/Python and turtles all the way down.

More seriously, as a more researchy/deep-tech startup, most of our stack is homegrown, to address the very specific needs of web-scale machine vision.

Re: Show HN: Automatically convert a website to Android and iOS

#53

Apple have a rule against making apps that "are simply websites bundled as apps". You should probably mention that somewhere on the website to avoid having a bunch of people pay for a developer account only to get their generated application rejected by Apple.

There are tons of web-view based apps in the App stores. Phonegap bases their entire business on a similar concept.

Re: Show HN: Automatically convert a website to Android and iOS

#54

SUGGESTION: You'll probably want to include your tagline "Convert your website into native Android and iOS" in the homepage title tag...for SEO purposes.

thanks. we're using https://prerender.io/ to create static files for the crawlers and still fixing up the seo.

Re: Show HN: Automatically convert a website to Android and iOS

#55

Created duplicate navigation. Extremely limited navigation options. Scrolling is sketchy, when scrolling ends shows random item from the list not the one the scroll stopped at. Not ready for mainstream yet.

thanks for the feedback. one thing to be aware of is that the apps run much faster smoother on device versus in browser simulator. we'll also be supporting more navigation options, as well as other native components, going forward.

Re: Show HN: Automatically convert a website to Android and iOS

#56

Exactly what I was looking for. I tried using PhoneGap but installing all this SDKs is a pain. PS: I can't even subscribe to your newsletter, everything seems broken: http://i.imgur.com/Ss42bJE.png

So I tried it and the result is amazing considering how little time it took to make it: https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-HMbRacJQ7WQ/U5IdwmumEzI/A...

great to hear! thanks.

Re: Show HN: Automatically convert a website to Android and iOS

#57

just tried this because I hate the android wikipedia app (which is also just a wrapper). the only thing it needs is an intent filter for the website so any urls (like wikipedia urls) will be receivable by the app.

Try the new Wikipedia app beta which came out yesterday:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wikipedia....

Re: Show HN: Automatically convert a website to Android and iOS

#58
post #48

I worry that it may encourage creating hundreds of low quality apps cluttering the App Store/Google Play.

Speaking as someone who has stuff in Google Play - perhaps. But it may also make it easier for someone with a great idea but not a lot of programming experience able to get something out that outweigh having to index a number of low quality apps. Given the filtering mechanisms on both stores that are in place, I'd be less worried about getting a lot more "bad" apps than making it easier for good apps to get noticed - a current problem that likely won't be affected one way or the other by this.
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