Stop reloading of web app launched from iPhone Home Screen

Question

I created a web app and added to my iPhone Home Screen. When I switch to another app and back, iPhone automatically reload my web app. This breaks my app flow.

H

Answer 1

Update: as this answer is receiving downvotes, I added this explanation.

Your problem might not be the actual reload, but the fact that Mobile Safari treats your user's cache and cookies differently when your web app is opened through the browser, than when it's 'installed' as a web app to the home screen. Although the solutions proposed here that use localStorage will work, they're a lot of work for client-side logic that can be avoided if your server is already responsible for persisting the session state of your user. The 30-second solution is to simply explicitly set the session cookie to have a longer lifetime.

This allows you to keep the state intact even between device reboots, so even though it doesn't technically stop the web app from being reloaded when launched from the home screen, it is an easy way to restore the state for the user without him/her noticing the reload - which in many cases I suspect is the real problem.

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For a more elaborate discussion of this strategy and code examples, take a look at these questions and my answers there:

• Maintain PHP Session in web app on iPhone

• iPhone "Bookmark to Homescreen" removes cookies and session?