Real world goods in iPhone app? - objective-c

I've seen questions asked here before, but they do not address the issue. That said:
"In App Purchases" specifically may not be real world goods or services, according to Apple's guidelines. What services allow integration with iPhone apps so that I can use ObjectiveC to sell things in an iPhone app?
In other words, how can I sell stuff in my app and not use a website or integrated UIWebView?

The only process I can think of would be something like using an e-commerce app like Magento or Shopify and using the API to pull the product data, and then make HTTP requests to the site to simulate the ordering process.

Related

What is the difference between Shopify App Bridge and embed in shopify admin

I'm currently starting a project on shopify to make an app and I've noticed that they have released Shopify App Bridge but also I have the option to select Embed in shopify when the app is created. Is this one in the same or two different ways to display the app in the users store? If so what are the main differences to help eme select which to use?
App Bridge is a replacement to the EASDK. It's the future of Shopify App development. You would use App Bridge to develop your embedded apps instead of EASDK and your existing EASDK apps now use App Bridge under the hood. EASDK will eventually be deprecated but for the foreseeable future will still work as it always has. I encourage you to give App Bridge a try.
Full disclosure, I work on the App Bridge team at Shopify.

What is a progressive web app in layman's terms?

I have been a dev for some years now, but I can't wrap my head around what exactly is a PWA.
For example, if an app runs on a mobile phone it is a native app. I can point to it and tell people that "look it is a native app."
In a similar sense, what is a PWA? Where does it run? Which app can I point to and tell that it is a PWA?
From what I have read on the web I feel that a PWA is a website that has modern technologies and gives a "native app like" experience to the user.
Is my understanding correct?
All in all, it is a website that has native-like experience?
If so how does a user separate a normal website form a PWA?
The concept of the progressive web app (PWA) was approached by Google in late 2015. They are basically web applications (Website) but have look and feel like other native mobile apps. The progressive web app enabled websites can offer functionalities such as working offline, push notifications, and device hardware access.
Benefits of the progressive web app:
1. Smaller and Faster:
The progressive web apps are much smaller in size than native apps. They don’t even need to install. That’s they are not wasting disc space and load very fast.
2. Responsive Interface:
Progressive web app (PWA) supported web pages are capable to fit in every screen sizes automatically. It could be a smartphone, tablet, desktop or laptop.
3. No Updates Required:
Most of the mobile apps need regular weekly updates. Like the normal website, progressive web apps (PWA) are always loaded latest updated version whenever the user interaction happens and no App or Play Store approval required.
4. Cost Effective:
Native mobile apps need to be developed for both Android and iOS devices separately and their development cost is very high. On the other hand, progressive web apps are had the same features but the fraction of the prior price.
5. SEO Advantage:
Progressive web apps are discoverable by search engines and load super-fast. Just like other websites, their links are sharable too. This, in other words, gives good user experience and result in SEO rank boost.
6. Offline capabilities:
Due to the support of service worker API, PWAs are accessible in offline or low internet connections.
7. Security:
PWAs are delivered over HTTPS connection and secure user-data over each interaction.
8. Push Notifications:
By the support of push notifications, PWAs can interact easily with the users and provide a really amazing user experience.
9. Bypass the app stores:
PWAs don’t need the App store or Google play store support. Their updated version can be directly loaded from the web server without the requirement of app store approval. On the other hand, native apps need days of approval if any new update required. There are possibilities of getting rejected or banned.
10. Zero installation:
During browsing, progressive web app gets its own icon on phones and tablets, just like a mobile application, but without the need to go through the tedious and slow App Store installation process.
Disadvantages of the progressive web app:
1. Less access to system features:
Currently, Progressive Web Apps have limited access to native system features than native apps. Also, all browsers are not supporting its full features but maybe in near future, it will be the new standard of development.
2. More Android – Less Apple’s iOS:
progressive web apps are currently, most supported by Android devices. Apple’s iOS is only partially supporting.
3. No review standard:
progressive web apps don’t need any kind of review system which is applicable for native apps from the app store. It may make the process faster but lack of promotional benefits from the app store.
Progressive web app checklist:
The checklist for the progressive web app is extensive. I have described its main few items here.
1. HTTPS
2. Web app manifest - manifest.json
3. Service worker
4. Responsive design
5. App icon
6. First load fast even on 3G
Conclusions:
There are huge possibilities offered for the progressive web app. Although there are lots of features and browser adaptability expected in near future. But, whatever already exists in the market is enough to show a strong mobile presence.
Visit the video blog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVXP-RzA0Eo
A PWA is a website with certain progressive features, most notably the ability to load offline or in areas with spotty connection, load quickly, display push notifications, and have other native app qualities. The benefits of a PWA is that they run on any browsers (since they're a normal website, if the browser doesn't support PWAs then the user gets a normal website experience), even desktop browsers. On mobile devices, the user will often get prompted to install the web app to the home screen, which happens almost instantaneously and uses barely any data since the website is already loaded. This allows for way more "downloads" than a native app, leading to higher engagement. For another brief overview of what a PWA, Google has some great articles about them.
Technically speaking, a PWA is a website that has two things: a web app manifest file and a service worker.
A manifest is a JSON file (usually called manifest.json) with some information about the progressive web app. It contains information similar to what you would include with a native app. It has the name, the short name for display on home screens, icons, orientation, etc. A web app manifest can be used on any site (even non-PWAs) to give the browser more information and allow the site to create a shortcut on the user's homescreen, but it's required for a PWA. You can read more about it over on the Google Developer's site.
A service worker is a JavaScript file that can be installed by the browser to do certain tasks. This file will be run in the background of the site and can do things like caching resources, intercepting network requests (to do stuff like return data from the cache), receiving push notifications, background synchronization, etc. When a user first visits your site this JS file gets installed and starts running. This is the file that allows for things like offline functionality. You can read more about service workers on the Google Developer's site as well.
Roughly speaking PWA is a web app that has native feeling and can be installed to the users' home screen and can start & work offline with an optional sync to server when Internet connection gets available.
To be considered a Progressive Web App, your app must be:
Progressive - Work for every user, regardless of browser choice,
because they are built with progressive enhancement as a core tenet.
Responsive - Fit any form factor, desktop, mobile, tablet, or whatever
is next.
Connectivity independent - Enhanced with service workers to work
offline or on low quality networks.
App-like - Use the app-shell model to provide app-style navigation and
interactions.
Fresh - Always up-to-date thanks to the service worker update process.
Safe - Served via HTTPS to prevent snooping and ensure content has not
been tampered with.
Discoverable - Are identifiable as “applications” thanks to W3C
manifests and service worker registration scope allowing search
engines to find them.
Re-engageable - Make re-engagement easy through features like push
notifications.
Installable - Allow users to “keep” apps they find most useful on
their home screen without the hassle of an app store.
Linkable - Easily share via URL and not require complex installation.
I think PWA is quite a broad term. I say broad because there are many ways of developing and distributing a PWA. In Layman's terms a Progressive Web App is a 'web site' that is effectively used/displayed like a native app. I believe an example of this would be something like phonegap? where phonegap built an app 'surrounding/scaffolding' and displayed a webpage with some custom CSS over the top. (Editorial Note: Phonegap is not related to progressive web apps. Phonegap creates actual, native applications. Wrapping a website in a native application is very different from progressive web apps.)
Most recently though I've been working on a lot of react only based website which I believe is the closest to PWA you can get at the moment (especially for IOS who only support minimal feature to encourage you to build native apps for their app store).
But yea it's basically an app like app that's not an app; rendering from a web page :thumbsup:
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are web apps that follow a set of guidelines
Starts fast, stays fast
Performance plays a significant role in the success of any online experience, because high performing sites engage and retain users better than poorly performing ones. Sites should focus on optimizing for user-centric performance metrics.
Works in any browser
Users can use any browser they choose to access your web app before it's installed.
Responsive to any screen size
Users can use your PWA on any screen size and all of the content is available at any viewport size.
Provides a custom offline page
When users are offline, keeping them in your PWA provides a more seamless experience than dropping back to the default browser offline page.
Is installable
Users who install or add apps to their device tend to engage with those apps more.
For more details see What makes a good Progressive Web App?

Security questions for iOS app interaction with API

I am going to develop an iOS app for my web application so I will be working on an API Service that the iOS app will consume.
My question is :
How can I make sure to protect the access to my API ?
My main concern is just that I don't want someone else to use my API in order to duplicate the content to another app or website.
Thanks in advance,
Unfortunately this is very difficult to do. In short, you can't do this with 100% assurance because once your code is in the client's hands you have no control over it. Check out this StackOverflow question: Security When Using REST API in an iPhone Application
You may also find some value in this StackOverflow question as well: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15390354/api-key-alternative/15390892#15390892

integrate paypal standard in iphone application

I am developing iphone application for a shopping cart, i have done all stuffs but now its turn for online payment, the web version support paypal standard and the client want to stick with paypal standard the user will be redirected and paypal site and log and complete order. Is this possible on iphone?
Some days before apple does not allow any third party payment gateway. But now apple allows it to use the third party payment gateway like Paypal. You can used paypal library which allows you to pay your payment of products which you purchased from the app. For doing all this, paypal provides the library for mobile application development. I had used it in my 3-4 apps & works fine for me.
may be this could help you
link
link
Download Mobile Express Checkout Library from library and add the same to your project.
Why not you using PayPal SDk for Mobile device ? I have integrated PayPal in my app through their MPL library and Modified some stuffs like App Key and price,Store name Receiver account details etc. And its working fine for me.
check this link which is Already answered.
Also you can have a look at Getting started Guide.
PayPal API : How to integrate it in my App? IOS5
https://developer.paypal.com/
You need to implement paypal on your web server first.
Then go to that link from UIWebview….

Cross-platform mobile website application design [closed]

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I will need your valuable advice on developing mobile website for mobile devices. I've never developed any website for mobile devices, and that's why I will be so pleased if you could share your thoughts with me. My questions are
Can I assume that using html5 is safe and my web application would run on the most of the mobile devices web browsers? If it doesn't which one is the most supported standard so I should consider using it?
Is Javascript supported on most of the mobile web browsers? Is it safe to use javascript on my web application?
What is the most used web browser on mobile devices? Which one should I take into account, the mobile device OS and Model or the web browsers used on mobile devices ?
How can I compile my web application for more than one mobile web browser / or mobile OS (whichever is applicable)
Is there a nice book on developing mobile web sites for cross platforms?
Thank you so much, looking forward to your answers.... Cheers
The compatibility of mobile sites is one of challenges in mobile web doevelopment. Since there are a lot of devices that have different browsers and browser engines.
HTML5 is now getting popular for developing mobile site. As far as I know, devices that work well with HTML5 is : Android, iOS, Symbian > 3rd edition, Blackberry with OS6, WebOS, and Windows Phone 7 (though it has very limited support). The other standard used is XHTML MP which work with low-end to high-end devices. But XHTML MP has very limited features compared to HTML5. I usually creating 2 mobile site, one for low-end with XHTML MP and one with HTML5 for mid-end to high-end.
Not all mobile web browser support JS. For low-end devices such as early Nokia s40 it doesn`t support JS. But for higher end devices, it support JS. When a browser support HTML5, it also support JS :D
I don't know the exact answer for it. But you might take a look at http://jquerymobile.com . jQueryMobile is a framework for creating mobile site for phone and tablet it has also the compatibility comparison at http://jquerymobile.com/gbs/
For books, I don`t know good books for it. But you can get a book for jquery mobile here.
Hope this helps you and correct me if I am wrong :D
I would recommend using a responsive design framework such as bootstrap
which is very popular. It based on HTML5 and very easy to use.
You can also use a cloud platform like simbla to create responsive website applications.
Hope thats helps
Cheers