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RE: KittyCats! App
If you're referring to true, native apps, 'not exactly trivial' is a vast understatement.
To develop iOS for iPhone and iPad, you need an iOS desktop development environment.
Then you'll need a completely different skill set, with a full Microsoft development environment, to support Windows Phone.
And another skill set and development environment for Surface tablets.
And another skill set and development environment for Android.
And Samsung.
And Nokia.
And Blackberry.
And ..
and ..
and ..
For testing, you need access to each version of each operating system for each device. There are a couple of online services for testing, though. But you're taking, at a minimum, an investment of several thousand dollars, per seat, for hardware and software, and that does not include the manpower costs. For each manufacturer.
On the other hand, you can do an HTML5 'web app'. You're still faced with supporting the quirks and deficiencies between each version of each manufacturer's product. But this is not nearly so bad because you're using the same development environment.
But the current KittyCatS web site is nowhere near the state where it could be made into an HTML5 web app (which is as vast an understatement as 'not trivial to develop').
The easy solution is to make the same mistake so many others make and create a completely separate web site for mobile users. Ignoring inefficiencies, that only doubles your development and support staff. The main effect, then, is the confusion for your users when they go to the wrong site for their current device.
Personally, the KittyCatS site is old, creaky and crufty. The internals, when you look at them are scary-bad. The site violates so many rules; that it works at all is a testament to the forgiveness of modern desktop web browsers.
I fully support the idea of making the web site touch- and mobile-friendly.
But, I would suggest starting over with a mobile-first, responsive design, creating a rigorously compliant HTML5 web application. And, yes, that means having an actual API (otherwise it won't be very responsive).
Yes, I know going rigorous HTML5 means abandoning older web browsers. But, come on, do we really need support for IE 3, 4, or 5 .. as KittyCatS currently has. (Even though those browsers can't handle CSS so what's the point?) So going with HTML5 means dropping support for Windows XP; who cares?
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