Managing app and data on a device (Block, Wipe and others)

 Etienne Noiret |  May 27, 2015

Managing the lifecycle of mobiles apps, often referred as Mobile Application Management (MAM), is one of the key features of MobileFirst Platform Foundation. It includes:

Ionic partners with IBM to bring Ionic Creator to the MobileFirst Platform

 Idan Adar |  May 13, 2015

Re-post from Ionic.Also see the IBM press release.

Getting familiar with IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation OAuth Security

 Anton Aleksandrov |  May 11, 2015

In recent years OAuth has become a de facto industry standard for authorization. It allows client applications to securely access protected resources on behalf of the data owner without compromising data owner's credentials.

Using Multiple Versions of the MobileFirst CLI Simultaneously

 Andrew Ferrier |  May 05, 2015

One of the things to be aware of when working with MobileFirst platform is that you can often have installed multiple versions of tools simultaneously, with a little care. This is something as IBM consultants we frequently need to do, as we work with different customers, but might also be...

Xamarin SDK for IBM MobileFirst 7.0 released

 Srihari Kulkarni |  May 02, 2015

Earlier this year, IBM released MobileFirst Platform Foundation v7.0. Among the many enhancements, this release provided standards based integration and authentication for mobile applications. MobileFirst applications can now use the MobileFirst security framework to access third party protected resources via OAuth.

Recent changes to Apple's app submission review process

 Idan Adar |  May 01, 2015

Recently (April 2015) Apple has tweaked a bit the tests performed on .ipa files as part of the App Store app submission review process.The change now disallows unsigned .sh type files inside the application bundle.

Using HTTP Adapters to access Watson Question and Answer service at IBM Bluemix

 Leandro Cordeiro David |  April 29, 2015

Important:IBM Watson Question and Answer service has been disconinued. See https://developer.ibm.com/watson/blog/2015/11/11/watson-question-and-answer-service-to-be-withdrawn/

Saving and Retrieving Images using Cloudant with HTTP Adapters

 Nana Amfo |  April 27, 2015

OverviewCloudant is a DBaaS, Database-As-A-Service, that manages and scales fast growing data sets. Cloudant is built under Couchdb, a NoSQL database which uses dynamic schemas instead of predefined schemas seen in relational database. The user has the complete power to be create a very structured database or non structured database....

Custom Network Analytics for iOS Apps

 Anthony Oliveri |  April 23, 2015

OverviewIn the 7.0 release of MobileFirst Platform Foundation, the WLAnalytics API for native iOS has been expanded to include 2 new utility methods: generateNetworkRequestMetadataWithURL: and generateNetworkResponseMetadataWithResponseData:andTrackingId:. These methods can be used in conjunction with networking APIs to record request metadata and send it to the Analytics server. The advantage of...

IBM MobileFirst apps on WindowsPhone 8.1 Update 1

 Srihari Kulkarni |  April 17, 2015

Last year, Microsoft released Update 1 for Windows Phones 8.1, also known as GDR1. While initially, this update was available only on device that were shipped new and for those with had the Preview for Developers installed, later on the update proliferated to almost all of the Lumia models. Known...

An overview of using the Ionic Framework with MobileFirst Hybrid Mobile Applications

 Raymond Camden |  April 16, 2015

For the past few weeks, I've been spending a lot of time exploring hybrid mobile applications with IBM MobileFirst. I have a lot of experience with hybrid mobile applications using Cordova, but as a new IBMer, I'm still getting up to speed with MobileFirst. As part of exploration, I did...

IBM MobileFirst Platform and iOS 8.3

 Chethan Kumar |  April 14, 2015

iOS 8.3 is out in the open and things look good for IBM MobileFirst Platform customers and developers.All the major features such as authentication, JSONStore, App management capabilities, server connectivity and adapter invocation/chaining, notifications, Cordova plug-ins, native pages, common UI controls, native elements in hybrid pages, Analytics and logging all...

React.js and MobileFirst Platform Foundation

 Chevy Hungerford |  April 03, 2015

Managing PDF documents in a hybrid app for offline availability [Updated for MFP 7]

 Etienne Noiret |  April 03, 2015

this article is a refreshed version of a previous article updated for IBM MobileFirst Platform 7.0. Indeed, the version 7.0 has introduced a new way to develop adapters using JAX-RS. Having the ability to use a Javascript or a Java based model gives the developer more flexibility to create optimized...

Windows Universal Apps: Part 1 - Native C# apps

 Ajay Chebbi |  March 29, 2015

In April 2014 Microsoft announced Universal Apps for Windows 8.1 . Universal app development is a paradigm in which you can use a lot of shared code between Windows Tabs and Windows Phone. In 8.1 – Microsoft introduced the Windows Runtime API (Win RT) that works on the Windows Phone...

HowTo: Create a customized "Remote Disable" for Native Android and iOS applications

 Yoel Nunez |  March 27, 2015

OverviewOne of the features of the IBM MobileFirst Platform is to prevent certain apps from connecting to the server. This is very useful when a vulnerability is found in one of the versions of your app and you want to prevent this app from accessing the server or using server resources. Default...

Getting familiar with IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation Java Adapters [Part 2]

 Anton Aleksandrov |  March 27, 2015

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation 7.0 introduced a new concept of Java Adapters. Java Adapters are implemented according to JAX-RS specification and allow a wide array of possibilities that were not available before in JavaScript adapters.

Getting familiar with IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation Java Adapters [Part 1]

 AntonAleksandrov |  March 24, 2015

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation 7.0 introduced a new concept of Java Adapters. Java Adapters are implemented according to JAX-RS specification and allow a wide array of possibilities that were not available before in JavaScript adapters.

IBM MobileFirst and Windows 10

 Vivin Krishnan |  March 23, 2015

Contributed by : Srihari Kulkarni and Vivin Krishnan

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation v7.0 is here

 Idan Adar |  March 20, 2015

Available today to download is IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation v7.0.Get the Developer EditionFor a full list of changes, visit the Release Notes section in the IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation user documentation.New in v7.0:Includes an iOS and Android SDK for use with a single-node Cloudant database for on-premise use. This new...

Using ProGuard in Hybrid and Native Android applications

 Yahav Winkler |  March 20, 2015

Starting MobileFirst Platform v7.0, you can use Android ProGuard to obfuscate Android code and block reverse engineering attempts of the application.The Android ProGuard tool can be used to obfuscate, shrink, and optimize application code.ProGuard renames classes, fields, and methods with semantically obscure names, as well as removes unused code.The embedded...

Changing the adapter host at runtime

 Nathan Hazout |  March 20, 2015

HTTP adapters are a great way to connect your application to a backend system. You can set the hostname and port in the XML file and get started quickly.However sometimes, your hostname is not "set in stone". Maybe you work with a staging server and a production server, maybe you...

Support for iPhone 6/6 Plus-compatible application resolution in MobileFirst Platform v6.3 and earlier

 Lior Burg |  March 19, 2015

The below is related only to MobileFirst Platform 6.3 and below.In iOS, the application resolution is defined by the launch image provided in the application resources.MobileFirst Studio creates a default launch image when creating a hybrid application with an iOS environment but it lacks support for iPhone 6/6 Plus resolution....

IBM MobileFirst v6.3.0 support for Xamarin released!

 Ajay Chebbi |  March 17, 2015

We released a new version of the Xamarin component that now supports IBM MobileFirst Foundation v 6.3.0.The Xamarin store now supports multiple version of a component. You can download the component version that is appropriate version for the MobileFirst server you are using. With this version you will notice the...

IBM MobileFirst Platform 6.3 and iOS 8.2 & 8.3 beta 2

 Chethan Kumar |  March 12, 2015

Apple opened the doors to iOS 8.2 to everyone along with the much anticipated Apple Watch companion SDK.This is another milestone iOS release and things look good for IBM Mobile First Platform customers and developers.The latest available version of IBM MobileFirst Platform, v6.3, plays well with iOS 8.2, as well...

IBM MobileFirst Platform for iOS (Beta) Security Overview

 Simon Kapadia |  March 08, 2015

IntroductionThis document describes, at a high level, the security model for the IBM MobileFirst Platform for iOS (beta). It covers the IBM Cloud-based platform whose primary documentation is available here:

OOTB support for BlackBerry WebWorks 2.2

 Ajay Chebbi |  March 05, 2015

Contributed by: Rahul RaghuvanshiBlackBerry released WebWorks SDK 2.0 beta in Q1 2014 for the BlackBerry 10.x OS. We had previoulsy published manual procedures for supporting an IBM MobileFirst hybrid applicaton with Webworks 2.0.We have now released built-in support in IBM MobileFirst Studio for generating new projects with WebWorks SDK 2.2!...

Working with JSONStore Collections (Join)

 Nana Amfo |  February 24, 2015

OverviewCurrently, JSONStore does not have a dedicated feature to join collection like most relational databases. However, you can utilize shared indexes using additional search fields to relate different collections. In this blog, I will demonstrate how this is done and at the end of the blog I will attach an...

Developing a Xamarin.Forms app for IBM MobileFirst

 Ajay Chebbi |  February 17, 2015

A detailed walk thru of developing a Android and iOS Xamarin.forms app for IBM MobileFirst

Protecting adapter procedures for backend access

 Nathan Hazout |  February 04, 2015

OverviewMobileFirst Platform Foundation Server allows to protect adapter procedures via several types of authentication, using security tests, realms and login modules.The MobileFirst client-side SDK helps you handle challenges sent by the server when trying to access a protected resource.

Changing the Server URL during runtime

 Idan Adar |  February 02, 2015

IntroductionAn often requested feature by customers for MobileFirst Platform (previously Worklight) is having the ability to change, during runtime, the MobileFirst Server URL an application will attempt connecting to.

Active/Active topology for the MobileFirst Platform Foundation Server

 Emmanuel Tissandier |  January 29, 2015

If you are deploying a MobileFirst Platform Foundation (aka Worklight) application and you are wondering how you will deploy the server in several data centers for better performances and high availability, you may consider this new article on developerWorks "How to coordinate and execute an active-active topology with IBM MobileFirst...

BlackBerry 10.3.1 certified with IBM MobileFirst

 Ajay Chebbi |  January 29, 2015

BlackBerry released their latest BB10 release recently. At the time of writing the post, the 10.3 release is available for BlackBerry Passport, BlackBerry Classic, Porsche Design P’9983 smartphone from BlackBerry.We have verified the BB 10.3.1 release withIBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation 6.2.0IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation 6.3.0In our certification we haven't found...

Control Notification bridging on Android watch

 Ajay Chebbi |  January 08, 2015

In Android 5.0 (Lollipop), Google announced bridged notifications for wearables. Notifications and their actions (i.e what happens when you tap on a notification) are bridged over to the wearable devices by default. However all the actions cannot be achieved with a single tap on the watch. So mobile developers need...

Customizing Direct Update

 Yulian Vurgaft |  December 30, 2014

OverviewWhat is “Direct Update”? “Direct Update” is the direct delivery of updated web resources to deployed applications. Subject to the terms and conditions of the target platform, organizations are not required to upload new app versions to the app store or market. In IBM® MobileFirst Platform Foundation, this option is available...

Managing PDF documents in a hybrid app for offline availability

 Etienne Noiret |  December 22, 2014

It is a common requirement for a mobile app to give access to the end user to a set of documentation like PDF files, so that he can read them even when he is offline. This blog post explains how to manage documents metadata with the JSONStore, download documents from...

Adapter Thread Pools - Removed!

 Jus Weiss |  December 22, 2014

OverviewIn Worklight 6.2 and earlier, the server uses designated thread pools to enforce timeouts and manage concurrency in adapter procedure invocation. This was achieved by running the backend invocation on a different thread, and controlling the run time of that thread. The number of available threads is actually the concurrency...

Xamarin 1.0 SDK validated with IBM MobileFirst v6.3.0

 Ajay Chebbi |  December 19, 2014

Couple of weeks back we announced the availability of IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation 6.3.0 . We went ahead and validated the IBM MobileFirst Xamarin SDK 1.0.0 with the IBM MobileFirst 6.3.0 server. The IBM MobileFirst Xamarin SDK passed our tests! iOS and Android apps built with the current IBM MobileFirst...

iOS 64 bit support

 Idan Adar |  December 17, 2014

Update - December 17th, 2014:iOS 64 bit support is now available in IBM Worklight Foundation 6.0 to 6.2 service releases as well as MobileFirst Platform Foundation 6.3. For more details, please refer to the following tech-note: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21692883Original post - November 17th, 2014:Apple recently announced that starting February 1, 2015 all...

Integrating IBM MobileFirst Platform with reverse proxies and security gateways

 Bill Dodd |  December 10, 2014

[This post is based on the “Integrating with reverse proxy and security gateway” section from the IBM MobileFirst Platform security technical white paper. The text has been updated and expanded to include additional details and new features related to Device Single Sign-On with security gateways that were introduced in IBM...