Question

What step am I missing? The view being returned to my iPhone is coming from application.html.erb and index.html.erb

Step 1: In config/initializers/mime_types.rb uncomment the declaration line for the iPhone:

Mime::Type.register_alias "text/html", :iphone

Step 2: Make a copy of app/views/layouts/application.html.erb calling it application.iphone.erb (I like to change the title to something specific to your iPhone so you can see immediately that the correct layout is being used)

<title>My iPhone Tasks</title>

Step 3: Make copies of the necessary view files in your controllers, calling them things like index.iphone.erb

Step 4: Decide whether to stick with the Rails 2 model of respond_to blocks that specifically call out a format of iphone or switch to the more DRY approach that uses the respond_with call. That’s what I’ve done, er tried 😉

Step 4a: Add to your controller the respond_to block:

class TasksController < ApplicationController
respond_to :html, :iphone

Step 4b: DRY up your methods, such as:

def index
  @tasks = Task.all
  respond_with (@tasks)
end

Step 5: Restart your server and hit the app from your iPhone.

Answer 1

You have to write a responder for your mobile mime type for respond_with to properly work.

Define the responder in application_controller.rb:

  def self.responder
    MobileResponder
  end

class MobileResponder < ActionController::Responder

  def to_format
    super
  rescue ActionView::MissingTemplate => e
    if request.format == "iphone"
      navigation_behavior(e)
    else
      raise unless resourceful?
      api_behavior(e)
    end
  end
end