I will be making an iPad app with many images (embedded) and it will be around 2gbs. I have made apps this size before for b2b with no issues. My question is does this 2gb limit Apple has extend to the downloading of new content packages? So the app ships much like a magazine app - at about 30-50mbs, say. And then you can download packages that might make the entire app 12gbs.
Apple's app size limit (50MB currently) only applies to mobile downloads, but not to WiFi downloads or purchases on your computer. There are a number of apps available today that exceed this limit (>1GB for some navigation packages that ship with custom offline map data).
However, that's not really a good user experience. Since there is still no incremental update system available on the App Store, the users will have to download the full app after every update.
Downloading this content from your own server after purchase might be a better option, if you can afford the traffic, since that data won't be cleared during an update. Make sure you disable iCloud backups for it though.
That being said, I wonder what kind off app requires 2GBs of essential images. Are you sure every user needs all of them at the same time? Can't you just download what is necessary?
The size limit of 2 GB only applies to the app itself, i.e. what's downloaded from the App Store. The size of things that the app downloads once it's installed is not really limited, but you must make sure that large data is not backed up via iTunes/iCloud, otherwise your app will very likely be rejected for violation of the iOS data storage guidelines.
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Some days before, i saw a blog post about why we need to keep whatsapp open on our smartphone to make it work on our PC.
It said that WhatsApp fetches the data (messages) from our smartphone and shows them on our pc which seems pretty good as it will lower the load on our database.
So now i wanted to know if there is a way to do so in react-native i.e, access the localStorage of one device from another.
Why i want to do that?
I am building an app where in the profile, i also take the profile picture from the user and i don't want to store it on the database but instead store it locally and serve it from there.
The reason for that is that we need buckets to store media files and serve them from there and i wanted to cut that part when deploying my app.
I am making a mobile app using Cordova and I need to save some sensitive and not so sensitive data inside the phone. I am a bit lost on what is the best way to do it.
I need to save:
A JSON web-token (for authentication).
A response from server (I save this to populate my page in case the GET request fails).
Coordinates information when user is logging data to the app (for later upload to a server from with in the app). These will be many separate logs, and can be large in size for local storage ~5-10 MB.
Till now i have been successfully saving everything I need to the local storage but I don't think that is the correct way to do it. So that is why I need some help in deciding what is the best course to take from security point of view.
Saving server response is just for better UI experience and static in size so I guess local storage is a good option to use.
But web-tokens and GPS logs is sensitive information and I dont want to keep it in the local storage as it is accessible from outside the app.
What other options do I have?
Cordova still doesn't have encrypted storage.
Is saving to files a good approach? This here says that data contained inside cordova.file.applicationStorageDirectory is private to the app.So can I use it to save the logs and the token?
The plugin also lists the file systems for Android and iOS and lists which of those are private.
I am currently working with android phones but want to extend the app to iOS later. I have never worked with file systems and caches before so I am a bit lost.
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.
I need to be able to update my app from within the app itself. I know Sparkle works for Mac Apps but I can't seem to find any for iOS.
Edit: I am not asking how to bypass the review process. I was thinking that there might be frameworks similar to Clutch.io that allow updates to images/documents/etc from within the app. Or things like UrbanAirship that manage in app purchase data that allows an app to be extended from the app itself.
You can't replace your app with an updated one (except through the App Store) and you can't replace parts of your app with updated parts (that would make your app's code signature invalid); you can only update stuff that's outside of your app's bundle.
You can't update the app binary yourself, the system is responsible for updating all apps.
Though, if you just want to update some data in your app you can do that for sure.
Here is what I was looking for:
http://code.google.com/p/cooliris-toolkit/
It has a class called RemoteUpdater which allows me to download zip files of images/data or whatever I like to extend my content.
Depends on your needs. If you dont want to see the app you can also do an Enterprise Deploy.
Used by corporations to distribute apps to their clients or employees.
Needs a separate Apple account which costs more.
Uses same process as deploy to appstore
Archive > Distribute > create ipa/plist > copy these to webserver with html page with link to plist and user clicks on link from Safari on iOS Device and it installs.
Going back to CArpp Store review process after that is painful.
We are creating an app as follows:
User starts with 2 free "tokens"
User can buy a pack of 10 tokens with $.99 in-app purchase
We have implemented this using NSUserDefaults to save the number of tokens.
Is there a way to make our free 2 token setting persistent? Even if they delete the app? Right now you can delete the app and reinstall to get 2 tokens again. iOS 5 has NSUbiquitousKeyValueStore for saving settings to iCloud, is that any better?
If not we will have to use a web service for this...
NOTE: This app is in MonoTouch, but probably irrelevant to the question. Also, in our app, the user wouldn't care to reinstall the app to get 2 more tokens (there is no other settings or game progress they would lose).
Just my 2c as #Almo covers most of this already and should get the credits :-)
NSUbiquitousKeyValueStore has the advantage of being by-user, e.g. several devices would share the same free tokens. OTOH that might not be something you want in your app...
Leaving data after uninstallation goes against the sandboxing of applications. There are ways to do it, like you can add images/photos/contacts/..., but unlikely to be "Apple approved" and more than likely easy to hack around.
So I also suggest you to use a web service. A simple way would be to validate with the service (e.g. using the device's MAC address since the device unique identifier is going away) when no application data is found (install and re-install) if it's a know device (no token) or not (get tokens).
If the paid tokens are re-usable (could be re-played by re-installing a backup that includes them as data) then you might want to track them with the web service. Non-reusable tokens won't suffer from this (and are likely easier to deal with).
You can set token to the Keychain. If the user uninstall app and install it again you can restore token from the Keychain.
sskeychain
Even if you try to make the setting persistent, I don't think it would be that hard for them to find that and delete it as well during a reinstall. If you want to prevent just casual cheating, maybe that's fine. But if this is your revenue stream, I'd recommend using a webservice.
Edited to add: I don't have any experience with iCloud. That might make sense, too.