I am researching MBaaS (Mobile Backend as a Service) and what its purpose is, for school. So far I gathered that it is basically a resource that developers can use so they can create the back-end code one time, rather than separately for each device - this way the focus can be more on the front-end of the development.
So my initial thoughts would be that this tool can be used only in the creation of Hybrid apps, however I'm having difficulty finding information to back that thought up. So can MBaaS be applied to Native apps also?
If the sense of meaning I've gathered about what MBaaS is used for is wrong, making my original question void or not applicable, a thorough but simple explanation, of what exactly MBaaS does would be very much appreciated.
MBaaS is a service that can be used by all – companies that are big to start ups and solo developers.
Mobile app development remains fun when it is about designing user interfaces, engineering social communication among users or bringing in stickiness. The Backend infrastructure plumbing is too time consuming and less rewarding. Worrying about database scaling, thread locking, persistence, user registration handling, messaging and pushing notifications is not fun. They are necessary evils that have to be taken care of to launch an app. The Baas paradigm has definitely made app development much easier and fun. Hence MBaaS services definitely present a powerful case for quick adoption.
Built.io Backend is an MBaaS provider. It is client platform agnostic. It provides platform-specific SDKs (iOS as well as Android) for native app development, and Xamarin and JavaScript SDKs for hybrid app development.
Coming back to your question. MBaaS can be used to develop native as well as hybrid applications. The services is not limited to a platform or any other technology.
PS: I am employee at built.io
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I've been developing with Kotlin for a few months and I have several apps on Google Play. I have a fundamental and critical change I want to get to the Kotlin language development team for consideration. I'm sure this change also requires the language administration involvement as it also goes to the core of user experience with Android phones.
In addition, I have been building a 'Wishlist' or request for changes in how coding is applied in development.
I am usually successful in web searches, but in this case I can't find how to contact Kotlin resources. Am I going to wrong places? Is it in GitHub?
I see WebRTC is the the best way for developing it. But there are some paid frameworks in market for establisting video chat between wide range of clients like Web-Web, Web-Mobile(IOS, Andriod, Windows, etc.,).
Web-Web communication flow is very simple to implement. Now, I want the same for Web-to-Mobile and vice versa without using any external frameworks built on top of Native WebRTC. Please suggest me some best approach to achieve this.
The latest Chrome on Android is WebRTC friendly, that means if you have a web app that implements WebRTC. It will be working on Android's Chrome.
If you decided to create you own native app that implements WebRTC. Here are some great sources.
iOS WebRTC: https://webrtc.org/native-code/ios/
Android WebRTC: https://webrtc.org/native-code/android/
Follow the instructions in each allow you to build the native WebRTC framework that you can later on import them into your native projects.
The WebRTC APIs are somewhat related to the ones you are using in your web application. You need to do more documentation reading for those as you are using the official framework that built from the source, not a third library.
Before starting you need to review and test platform to make sure it works fine for all your target user categories. You can do that by reviewing references and also testing some existing apps for user types you plan to support.
As you mentioned wide range of clients, you need to identify the limitations of WebRTC technology. You can also evaluate other technologies: in example you could reliably serve most client types with mobile and web apps that use RTMP.
Being said that IBM Mobilefirst is very advanced tool in developing hybrid mobile applications, I am curious to know if we can develop both the mobile application and the responsive mobile application using single code base. I know that there are different environments being provided out of box by Mobilefirst i.e mobile browser, desktopBrowser, Android etc.. I feel it kind of opens an option to developer to develop both mobile and responsive web application. But following questions and functionalities makes me rethink about going forward with this approach for practical implementation.
1) How far will the MobileFirst be reusable and flexible in terms of:
* implementing session management for both applications
* Authentication and Authorisation for both applications:
- When I said Authorisation, I meant user level preferences
2) What are the steps that need to be followed to setup a project which effectively uses the all the key features of the worklight for satisfying the above mentioned requirement.
3) Post development what are the steps that need to be followed to successfully deploy mobile and web application (Both of them will be using adapters to talk to services) into production.
Very sorry for making the question so theoretical. I felt very interesting and wanted to know.
1) How far will the MobileFirst be reusable and flexible in terms of:
* implementing session management for both applications
* Authentication and Authorisation for both applications:
- When I said Authorisation, I meant user level preferences
Depends which version of MFPF you are using.
Pre-7.1, all session management is the same in the server.
7.1 forward the server is session independent and currently Mobile Web and Desktop Browser are not supported; read more about session independent in the IBM Knowledge Center
Authentication works the same for both pretty much
2) What are the steps that need to be followed to setup a project which effectively uses the all the key features of the worklight for satisfying the above mentioned requirement.
There is not feature parity between the supported mobile environment and web environment, so the answer will depend on which particular features you will end up using. The IBM Knowledge Center contains a feature parity table.
3) Post development what are the steps that need to be followed to successfully deploy mobile and web application (Both of them will be using adapters to talk to services) into production.
That's got nothing to do with any of the environment you'll choose to use. It's the same for all. Yet again, read in the IBM Knowledge Center.
I've programmed a lot in asp.net mvc web applications. Now I want to write cross-platform mobile applications with cordova for the frontend and azure for the backend.
I am in doubt whether to use azure mobile services or WebAPI, because I want the power and freedom of WebAPI, but the convenience of azure mobile services. I do not understand concepts such as authentication, push notifications, etc.
My main goal is to focus on the application logic, frontend and backend with a significant weight of that logic in the backend. For this I have great doubts.
1st. I see both good mechanisms in AMS and WebAPI for external authentication, but not to manage your own authentication. What is the best way to manage your own authentication? Is Azure Active Directory solution?
2nd My intention is to create a well-defined API methods that return the exact data (json), rather than a rest api queryable (odata).
Wich is te best for this, WebAPI or AMS?
3rd I have experience with SQL Server, its relationships and Entity framework, but I do not care to learn and use NoSQL technologies, which is better? (However, I'm not comfortable with I can not use many to many relationships in NoSql).
Thank you very much.
there is not a real general answer for that, so take these as advices.
At first, keep in mind that AMS and WebApi are not so far. An AMS project IS a WebApi project with some helpers inside to make you comfortable working with related services (push notification, table entities), but you will lose a bit of control on your application.
The choice depends on your needs
Azure Active Directory IS a solution, but there are a lot more. You can use your preferred framework. AMS has got a pretty integrated login with most known social network and azure active directory as well, and is very easy to set up.
I'd suggest AMS. It will be easier to setup and mantain.
AMS is just WebApi castrated. To get all these services easier for you, you cannot for example
Customize startup of your application
Use a dependency injection framework
Run background tasks
And other stuff like that.
Hope it helps!
Are there any initiatives to implement/agree upon a standard API for connectivity between web browsers and client hardware.
Example: The iPhone has a GPS/Camera/Accellerometer in it. It'd be very cool if my web app could communicate with them (rather than me having to write a thick ObjectiveC application).
The closest thing I've seen to that is the Android phone API, which lets your programs access its hardware (relatively) painlessly. Google's pushing for it to become the new standard, but its hardly the same thing as a web-app (which, by most definitions, runs entirely in your browser?).
The upcoming version of FireFox has an API to read your lat/long off a GPS device.
To add to my own question; Yahoo provides a geolocation service called FireEagle that could act as a mediator and provide similar functionality.
In essence the phone communicates with a central Yahoo server updating its location. Your web app can then determine your approx location from that central server.