iPhone app design and distribution model

I need to create an app for a large company.

Their aim is to distribute this app to all of their customers (who thems开发者_如何学Pythonelves are companies - not individuals) and the end-user will be able to query their relevant information through this app.

The app will receive all of its data through webservices and will require login on every use.

On the one hand a web application might be suitable as all the data is anyway online and also distribution of such an app would be trivial.

On the other hand, they might want features in the long term which use the camera etc. and also the administration of the website (in addition to the existing web services) might be a problem - which means a native app working with web services is the solution.

The next question is the preferred way of distribution for this app if it is a native app.

I know Apple have the Enterprise program (which seems to have changed - I no longer see the reference to >500 employees or 250 device limit).

In my case there is one main company distributing the app to many customers so I don't know whether this program is appropriate.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I once had a similar problem... we ended up with the application in the store and an authentication mechanism inside the application. Most likely, customers would have to provide the user credential they use to authenticate at the web application to the iPhone app as well. For the decision whether to build a native application or use a web application, I would recommend using a hybrid approach. This way you can start with an application which is based on an UIWebView and extend it with features only available to native applications...