#mobile api

[patrickjones-blog]

Faster loading apps gives your business a bag of goodies ranging from better user engagement, higher conversion rates, higher SEO rankings and much more.Here are 10 tips to keep your APIs fast.

[paragytellc-blog]

NativeScript - Mobile App Development Company

NativeScript is a cross-platform framework created by Telerik team  for building native apps using JavaScript, CSS and XML. Paragyte is a leading Nativescript development company. We offer services like Nativescript web development, plugin development, UI development,Migrating JQuery, Mobile App development, migrating ReactJS to nativescript platform. Solution expertise: Knowledge management, Portal, timesheet management, HR & payroll portal, e-commerce mobile app, retail banking, enterprise content.

Contact us today for Nativescript development services:[phone]

[paragytellc-blog]

Comparison of cross platform mobile dev tools

Xamarin, ReactNative, PhoneGap, NativeScript

[paragytellc-blog]

Best Practices to Focus for Mobile API Security

APIs have become crucial in a successful business. Interaction between the client and a product/service can be achieved effectively by using an API. APIs are fast becoming a primary point of interaction

[wplugins]

WordPress full API and push notification panel (Utilities)

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[atljeremy]

CocoaConf Atlanta 2013

I recently attended CocoaConf Atlanta 2013. It was an great conference with lots of great sessions and talks by really great and admirable people. If you're interested in looking through the slides from the sessions, they can be found here, CocoaConf Atlanta 2013 Slides.

There were, as I said before, a lot of really great sessions but there were two that really intrigued me as they introduced me to new concepts that I had not seen before. The sessions I'm referring to were "Exploring MVC-N" by Marcus Zarra and "Mobile APIs: More than just object.to_json" by Stuart Gleadow.

In Marcus' sessions on MVC-N he spoke about the idea of have a NetworkController class which is solely responsible for communicating with a remote API, parsing response data, and strong the response in CoreData (or the persistent store of your preference). Then, in your ViewController's, or anywhere else you'd need to pull data from the API you would instead just ask CoreData for the response data. Here is a visual representation of of how the MVC-N pattern works.

There are a couple reasons I find this concept intriguing. First of all I really like the idea of keeping all networking code out of your ViewController's. Yes, some would say, "They are controllers, so it's fine", but I disagree. I've always followed a similar patter to that of MVC-N where I would have a NetworkManager class that would be responsible for all communications with the API, parsing response data, and caching responses but I would still have to make calls into the NetworkManager from my ViewController's. With MVC-N, this is not necessary. My ViewControllers would only need to ask CoreData for the response data it's needs. I feel this is a far cleaner approach and promotes decoupling of your networking and ViewController classes.

In Stuarts session on mobile API's he talked about how, for the most part, companies/developers who expose a public API have tens or even hundreds of separate API calls that are all highly coupled. They work by having to pass around user keys or some other type of uniquely identifiable information so the API knows what to do for each user. They can also be very difficult to learn due to poor documentation. Take Twitter for example. Twitter has a massive API with many different access points. See for yourself here, https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api. This makes trying to learn this API extremely difficult. Also, considering the fact that API endpoints can change, having a client that has hardcoded API endpoints is cause for disaster. This is where Stuart introduced the concept of using a standardized JSON formatting, such as HAL-JSON, can be a life saver.

HAL-JSON is a some what new concept on JSON Hyperlinking in which returns a set of "_links" in every API response that can be used by the client to very quickly and easily determine what access points are available and should be used given their current state. Here is an image representing a HAL-JSON response with the "_links" object that has been returned in the response which tells the client where to go from here.

Both of these concepts have really great potential. I am very excited to have discovered them and I'm really looking forward to exploring them more in the future. I'll be sure to report my findings.

Overall CocoaConf was a great experience. I met some really great people and learned a lot. I'd highly recommend it to any/all developers, especially those looking to get into the mobile scene or have already started developing for mobile. I look forward to attending next year.

[sdevo]

Characteristics for Mobile API Services

For the last few years APIs have become more and more important for business, often they become either a source of revenue, or central to success when use by third parties is the key driver.  However when making APIs for mobile it is necessary to consider…

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[mergelocal-blog]

Emotional Side of Technology

Building a successful mobile application requires an orchestra of skills, people, hardware and luck.  One of the most often overlooked things when conducting this orchestra is building an emotional pull into your concept to get those users back.  Unlike browser based applications people keep their phones close to their chest [literally and figuratively] and to define success a person must take time out of their current activity or want/need to fill in small voids with what you've created for their mobile phones.

A good application integrates emotional pull seamlessly without the user thinking about it. The easiest and most effective way to do this is through social integration (facebook social graph, twitter, foursquare) but some applications, just by their context have an emotional draw associated. 

Sure, there are Apps that perform functions (tools) but some of the most successful mobile apps also replace a tool with the same functionality + emotional draw.  Now its say social = emotional draw but that is not the line I'm trying to draw.  Social is clearly an element and option but not the only factor that plays into an emotional draw as you'll see. 

Lets take a look at the most compelling.

Instagram [capture moments of perspective and share with friends]

They won iPhone App of the Year from apple last year.  Instagram as a tool could replace your go-to when shooting a picture.  Also it replaces the action of posting pictures through facebook and twitter. Design-wise the execution is nearly flawless.  Its intuitive, although I have to say the new main navigation design is a step backward.

Highlight and Sonar [need to connect with new people]

This is the new startup rage.  If you haven't heard about either one of these: Sonar has been working on their technology for some time and Highlight announced at SXSW this year.  These apps represent the next generation of social by taking your current networks and traversing your connections, habits, hobbies to find people that are near you geographically at any given moment.   This allows you to potentially meet new people that you might get along with that are at your location or very close.

Facebook and Path [a chronology of my life] 

From a mobile perspective facebook is an ok'ish App.  Not the best to navigate but it also has a lot of information to stuff into an small screen.  I seldomly use it to check in, post pictures etc..  Path however, is what facebook could be in terms of timeline integration.  Its is by far the most beautiful App on the marketplace.  Unfortunately it does not solve a problem for me that has not already been solved by facebook effectively.  

With that said timeline has to be one of the strongest emotional pulls for me at the moment.   Looking down my timeline allows me to see where I've been, who I've been with, the people I've connected in a way that has been and will be aggregated without me knowing.  It feeds my ego in a positive way and doesn't intrude into my life. It reminds me that I have great friends and family...this emotional draw is massive.

WebMD [Am I going to be ok?]

This is an interesting one and my go to when somebody is worried about a symptom or illness they may have.  It also me to play doctor but more importantly give me reputable information quickly. 

No social integration here but I think medical and health applications have a signification breakthrough coming.  An intergration like nike+, while not the best in terms of UI and execution through ipod, is a taste of what I see coming with health apps.  There are slew of them that I've seen and not tested since I'm not exactly the most healthy person but I'm sure one will hit the radar soon that will draw me in.   I'm thinking maybe an integration with Nike Fuel Band would make sense. 

Charity

This is a relatively untouched market that could draw emotions bigger than anything we've seen when combined with social.  I have some friends working on a project that is going down this path with a social + charity goes instagram feel.  They are still working to master their app but they have a great start so far. 

Feel free to post a comment and/or plug your own app or an app you love for us to test and give you feed back on. 

MDW