Wordpress/htaccess - allow access to subdirectory - wordpress

Question

I have a subdirectory (app) I want to access that is in the root folder of my wordpress site. I have looked here:
https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/20152/cannot-access-non-wordpress-subdirectories-as-wordpress-overrides-them-with-a-40
I have tried the solutions and nothing worked.
I also tried adding a separate .htaccess file to the app subdirectory that looks like this:
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.htm
Options +Indexes
But it didn't seem to help:
The main .htaccess I am trying with now looks like this:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/app/(.*)$ [OR]
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [L]
</IfModule>
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
I get a 404 error.
What am I doing wrong? If I am viewing the site on an iPhone, is clearing the safari history on the phone enough to refresh the data so it recognizes the new .htaccess? Thanks.
UPDATE
I added:
<Directory "/home/eamondev/public_html/subconscious/">
Options All
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
to a .conf file that gets Includeed in httpd.conf, restarted apache, but didn't help.
I also tried:
<Directory "/home/eamondev/public_html/subconscious/">
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
and it didn't work, I'm not sure if I only need AllowOverride All - either way this doesn't seem to help.
UPDATE
In a .conf file that is Included in httpd.conf, I tried:
<VirtualHost 162.241.180.99:80>
ServerName eamondev.com
DocumentRoot /home/eamondev/public_html
<Directory "/home/eamondev/public_html/">
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
but it didn't help.
Is there any reason I shouldn't just make another subdomain on my server and host the files out of there so reaching them doesn't conflict with my wordpress site?

Answer 1

Use below code i think it will work.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
# Map http://www.example.com to /app.
RewriteRule ^$ /app/ [L]
# Map http://www.example.com/x to /app/x unless there is a x in the web root.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/app/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /app/$1
# Add trailing slash to directories within app
# This does not expose the internal URL.
RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^app/(.*[^/])$ http://www.example.com/$1/ [R=301]
</IfModule>

Answer 2

Turns out, my domain hadn't propagated yet, so it wasn't possible to see/test any of the changes I was making. Before I realized that it was still propagating, I also thought to just create another subdomain and host the files I needed to from there.