We\'re currently developing an HTML 5 app for the iPad and looking for a method to prevent the screen from going to standby/sleep. I understand this is possible with a nativ
Nope, you can't do this with a plain website/web app.
One option could be to create a native app containing simply a UIWebView. The native app would contain code to load your web app into the webview and disable the idle timer. (It's the idle timer that puts the iPad to sleep.)
Adjusted settings to not let the iPad lock the screen. Fired up a page that uses websockets. In an simple interval I used the socket to send and recieve a message every 60s. Worked for a couple of hours, then I closed it.
I also tried to switch tabs. Worked.
Standby/sleep modes are rooted to the OS, so it's pretty much impossible to achieve with HTML5. Why would you do this anyway? Maybe you could think of a timeout function in case the device was in standby/sleep and came back. This answer looks useful but I haven't yet test it.