Celebrate iOS 6 for iPhone and iPAD

For iPhone and iPAD app developers iOS 6 will lead to some interesting possibilities for future apps. Developers can access a number of new capabilities at the OS level including Maps, Facebook integration, Passbook, Reminders, new features with In-App Purchase, new camera APIs, and more.

The Magic Application Platform support and functionality for these new capabilities has yet to be announced nor has there been an indication of much of it works out of the box. But developers can hope for new capabilities from among those now supported by the iOS platform:

Maps. The war between Google and Apple continues with the  new Maps engines built into the OS and accessible to apps. The new Map Kit provides developer access to a different kind of more visually aesthetic cartography and interactivity. This makes it easier to build things like routing apps for transportation management systems.

FaceBook. Integration methods to FaceBook are now supported at the OS level. It will be interesting to see if this truly adds value or just provides Apple more say over how far FaceBook creeps onto their devices or both. It seems like the support for single sign-on will be a plus however.

One of the biggest problems facing users is the plethora of apps, tickets, passes, gift cards and loyalty programs residing on their phones. Apple’s plan is to simplify access through a Passbook including accessibility to the Passbook via apps, email and the web.

Reminders. There will now be an iOS 6 supported app called Reminders that provides a central repository events and reminders with control over properties such as due dates, priority, and location based alerts.

In-App Purchase. Apple has added improved in-app purchase and in-app content purchasing, including blocking recent widely publicized hacks that exposed in-app content to free access even when the developer intended the content to be purchased through the Apple Store.

Camera. Apps will be able to control the camera’s advanced features such as focus, exposure and region-of-interest. Face-recognition APIs and hardware enabled video stabilization will also be supported. New APIs let you control focus, exposure, and region of interest. You can also access and display faces with face detection APIs, and leverage hardware-enabled video stabilization.

 

Other.  iOS 6 will also support apps that want to do in-app Bluetooth pairing, audio and video sampling, rich text on labels and text fields, and in-app access to Game Center features like multi-player settings.

 

How much of this should or will be supported for Magic xpa developers remains to be seen, but its nice to see Apple moving in a positive direction with all these improvements.

Magic Application Platform: “Take Me to Your Developer!”

Just when you thought you would never like a cross-platform mobile development platform, Magic Software has introduced a MEAP platform that makes sense. Previous MEAPs were either frustratingly uniform in their approach to user interface design or overly limiting in the way a native app could be designed for iOS.  The Magic xpa Application Platform iOS client has finally landed and the news is very, very good. It may seem like it was a long way coming, like an alien from a distant planet but “We’re Here!” and we are saying loud and clear: “Take Me To Your Developer!”

The Magic iOS client is a native device OS RIA application designed to take advantage of iOS mobile device capabilities, while being connected to a scalable, robust enterprise server. For those familiar with the Magic Application Platform, the Magic iOS client implements a subset of the capabilities of the Magic RIA client for .NET Desktop, as they are applicable on an iPhone or iPad device.

And you get loads of native device capabilities.

Let’s Play “Where’s Waldo?” er, “Where’s Waldo’s Phone?”

With the Magic Application Platform  the developer can create applications for the Magic iOS Client that leverage the devices' GPS. The ClientOSEnvGetfunction can be used to query the current device location using the internal or connected GPS device. Function syntax in the Magic Application Platform is selected in an intuitive table driven development wizard interface. So for example,  

ClientOSEnvGet (‘device_location’) will return the current device location, using available location options such as GPS or Network. The result is a string in the following format: “OK|Latitude|Longitude”, where OK is a fixed part for testing if a result was returned, and Latitude and Longitude are the coordinates of the current location. If a location could not be obtained, for any reason, an error message will be returned.

Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?

The applications you create can also use the camera in the iOS client using the Magic Application Platform’s  ClientFileOpenDlg function. Be sure to specify the path as camera, so that the camera will be opened.  This will enable the user to take a picture and select it. The full path name of the picture will be returned from the function. It is then possible to upload this picture to the server using the ClientFileToServer function, or by loading it into a BLOB variable.

Developing Apps that Access Miscellaneous iOS capabilities on iPhones and iPads

In situations where it is possible to use device capabilities such as calling a phone number, sending an SMS, sending an email and opening a browser, the developer can create app capabilities for that. On the Magic Application Platform the developer can leverage iOS device capabilities by using the Invoke OS command with the URL of the required command.

All of the following examples would be valid parameters for the Invoke OS command:

          tel:1-408-555-5555

          sms:1-408-555-1212

          mailto:chunkylover53@aol.com

          mailto:?to=tcook@apple.com

          http://magicsoftware.com

More than Window Dressing for iOS

Of course the Magic xpa Application Platform delivers more than just window dressing for the iOS Client. Your developers can now build Magic mobile apps that run in a native iOS client and perform important business transactions. These apps are also easily targeted to Android, BlackBerry, etc. Regardless of which mobile client is connected, they can all access the same backend Magic Enterprise Server. So your boss can use your app on his iPhone, your colleagues can strut your apps on their BlackBerry devices and you can run it on your guilty-pleasure Android.

OK, now that you have taken the Magic xpa Application Platform to your developer, take it to your leader and get the mobile apps you need today!