I'm developing an internal iOS cocoa app, in which multiple devices need to connect and read/write to a data connection. It will be similar to an inventory application.
Would this be best done using a server-side SQLLite communicator or some other kind of server-side data store? Or is there a method i don't know of that multiple devices can share data.
Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
A third-party service possibly worth checking out is Parse.
With Parse, you can add a scalable and powerful backend in minutes and launch a full-featured app in record time without ever worrying about server management. We offer push notifications, social integration, data storage, and the ability to add rich custom logic to your app’s backend with Cloud Code.
Depending upon the complexity and assuming that all devices can be connected to the same icloud account you could utliize icloud for this.
http://www.raywenderlich.com/6015/beginning-icloud-in-ios-5-tutorial-part-1
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We are developing an app for Android and IOS for students. student can receive notification for upcoming events like exams or interviews.
We are between two decisions: Using FCM with the development of a backed which manages the sending of notifications and the registration of tokens or using the schedulers that exist in IOS and Android then download a list of events from an API regularly and trigger a local notification which will require less development on the backend side but a little more on the frontend side.
What would be best in your opinion and can we trigger a notification even if the app is closed for the 2nd solution?
I would deffinitely recommend to use FCM. It is much easier than it looks like and the performance of your notifications would be much better regarding stability, timing, battery persistance and other. You can use on of the Firebase databases to store the notification tokens and the Firebase Cloud Functions to send them from there. I have made a very similar App for Kindergarden children and it works great. I'm not sure if it would even work at all when you do it on your own. At least not as you expect it. For me that sounds like much more work.
I am looking to develop a cross platform mobile app involving real-estate. I have looked at Zillow's API and I think that will be one of the API's I utilize.
https://www.zillow.com/howto/api/APIOverview.htm
My question is if I were to utilize their API as well as those of some other real estate sites, would it make more sense for me to call those APIs directly from the mobile applications, or would it make more sense to have a proxy server, possibly with my own databases compiled from these sites, that the mobile application would call? I have only read the basic overview of the Zillow API, but it looks like it is limited to 1000 calls per day. I understand it is a fairly general questions. If there are any more details that would help to make a better answer, please let me know.
Also, if you know of any other free/cheap real-estate APIs, can you please provide them?
Thanks
Not exactly sure what your metrics are.
But generally speaking, it is a bad idea to hook your mobile app directly to third party API for the following reasons:
You do not control the API, if the third party changed their API your app won't work, the user would have to upgrade. But if you isolate the mobile app by connecting to your server you have more control and can have much longer life.
Caching/rate limits. You can get the data from the third party and store it (if you are allowed) then share the data with all your users
Multiple datasources: Usually you get the data from multiple datasources, so aggregating the data on your server then send the enhanced data model to the app is a lot easier than pulling data from different sources and compiling them on the app itself.
Our Team is trying to build multiple Windows 8 Store Apps for an enterprise.
How do we maintain a common session for all apps(where we store data which need to be shared)?
How do we enable direct interaction between the apps developed i.e. sharing objects or string(JSON) among the apps?
There is not built in way to do this. Realistically you probably have three options to share data between applications.
The first is to use the cloud / web services. This makes the most sense as you'd have full control about what is shared, authentication etc. Using libraries such as SignalR could let you add real time functionality between the applications as well as multiple users.
The Share contract, by using custom data formats you could enable the apps to share specialised data between each of them. This can make sense if the user has a set of data they want to send to another application to enable a quick piece of workflow as the Share target is only partially launched. This also is limited in that it's enabled by user action.
Custom protocol handlers, by giving each app it's only protocol my-custom-app:///some-action?param1=value etc then you can pass data between apps, note this launches the app in question when you launch that uri. This would be best for more longer running scenarios.
I'd suggest a combination of all three depending on the user action. Cloud services to store the data for the user and then a mixture of Share and Protocol to enable to the user to smartly move the apps seamlessly.
Here exactly the same question as yours. In short: there is no such ability. Sometimes I think that it will be easier to share data via Internet that in device.
How does the Dropbox Datastore API differ from similar offerings like Parse? One difference that I see is that my users pay for server storage instead of me. Are there other differences?
Disclaimer: I'm a Dropbox engineer who worked on the Datastore API, and know about the Parse API only indirectly. Weigh my opinion appropriately. Major differences I know of (pro and con):
Dropbox Datastores are free to the developer, and free the user for the first 5MB per-app (after which their Dropbox quota applies). Parse charges developers based on how many API requests they’re making.
Parse has minimal offline support, while Dropbox has full offline operation. With Dropbox, if the developer modifies data while offline, those modifications will be reflected in subsequent queries (with Parse, those changes are not reflected). Dropbox provides on-device query logic (unlike Parse) so that apps can continue to generate the views they need to, even when there’s no Internet available. In addition, Parse does not provide conflict resolution or querying offline.
Parse provides the ability to share data between users, and global data for all users of the app. Dropbox Datastores only support per-user data (for each app) for now (sharing is on the roadmap).
I would also add that:
Parse is full feature of backend of as service. You can find a pretty complete list of the other player in this field: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backend_as_a_service. They provide feature like:
Data service
User registration/auth
Push notification
Social
The dropbox Datastore APIs is more focusing on data services. (You also got the User part for free too?) Also it works full offline.
The Parse framework can store data that can be ready by any user in the application.
The Dropbox datastore, store data for each user, and you can't accesss data from other user. That's the main difference.
So easy to get lost in this since you have to read between the lines. My take is that with Datastore you are working with objects stored offline locally as json. I'm hoping they will soon release a Xamarin Android component - they released an IOS component last month. Since Xamarin targets both Android and IOS and Winphone, who knows why they made a dedicated IOS DLL for Xamarin but I digress. With Parse, it appears to me their intent is the always-connected-device. Sure you can save queries locally and you can save (save eventually) locally where Parse will push to the server when it is connected. But saving "eventually" and saving queries for offline work is a different design than just saving and letting Parse do it all in the background for you - which it does not unless I have missed something that would make this attractive to me. I cannot see Parse useable for devices that you know will be sometimes-connected, without a lot of code to make this happen and sync.
Is there a way to perform async communication between iPhones/IOS devices? I have been researching and thought maybe APN might fill that void, but it sounds like I can't initiate an APN push from an IOS dvice to another, and even if I could I can't trigger the "event" on the other device with just an APN push from what I can identify.
Does anyone have any examples or general advice for IOS device interaction for devices that are not in GameKit (i.e. wifi/bluetooth) range that does not require an intermediate service (urban airship, dedicated server, etc) or will I need to have a 3rd party in order to trigger and/or sync these interactions between devices?
Sorry I don't have any code or details as this is still in the planning phases for me. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.
The answer is : use a server side app and have all your devices talk to that server.
If you dont want or cannot host an app, you can use a cloud solution based on websocket like Pusher. You can then subscribe to events and post messages with data.
They have an iOS client library
http://pusher.com/docs/client_libraries
P.S: Also have a look at Parse and Stackmob , i remember that had this kind of feature was in their roadmap, but i don't know if it's available yet..
Hope this helps,
Vincent