Can we support offline Single Page web apps in iOS 10+?

Question

We are developing a Single Page RWD web app which supports all mobile form factors. We would like to

1. have the webapp support offline browsing capability as well
2. Once the data is downloaded from server, user should be able to see that data even if there is no internet connection.
3. Users should be able to fill forms, and later submit it to server, when there is internet connection.

Can we use the AppCache, HTML5 storage to get the offline capabilities? If we are using hash to change the navigation in address bar the whole page refresh problem is also not there.

Was going through some of the older posts in Stackoverflow on this. Offline iOS web app: loads my manifest, but doesn't work offline

This post is dated back in 2011. In 2017, can we support

Freakish

As I understand you want something like PhoneGap or Cordova. phonegap.com – Domineca

without 3rd party: you can provide intial html in you bundle, the copy it to document folder and present it in webview, loading new same time, and replacing old if succeed. Basically same for forms. – Domineca

@MichaelVorontsov, it's not a hybrid app which we are looking for. We wanted a web application which is mobile friendly and should have the offline capabilities. – Freakish

You want app to be opened in browser? – Domineca

Since service worker is available in safari this could be feasibly built as a progressive web application see here jakearchibald.github.io/isserviceworkerready – Hinrichs

Answer 1

If you want to open something from an URL to the webView, you need internet. You can do the following thing in the iOS application with certain conditions.

Users should be able to fill forms, and later submit it to the server, when there is an internet connection.

Latterly

It is not a native/hybrid app. We want to do this through a web app. – Freakish

Answer 2

You need to cache all the responses when using the native iOS or any other cross platform. If you are wondering about PWA, it is coming in the 11.3 version of iOS. Refer this link to understand more about the service workers in the WebKit. It is a beta version, so do not expect it to run bug free.

Belovo