Ready-to-go Bluemix Web App to speed up MobileFirst Platform Foundation deployment to IBM Bluemix Containers

Have you tried deploying the MobileFirst Platform to IBM Containers before? If yes, you would have used a bunch of command-line shell scripts which needs a list of prerequisites to set up the environment, refer the article - Run IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation on IBM Containers....more

MobileFirst Analytics - Planning for Production

MobileFirst Analytics – Pre-productionPart of the value of MobileFirst Platform (MFP) Foundation is the out-of-the-box, simple, integrated analytics reporting and console you deploy so you can see a near live view of your infrastructure performance, client logs, and many other events and statistics.This article does not intend to give you the talking points or espouse the benefits of analytics. I hope the value of analytics and in-production client log collection is well understood! The goal here is to give you the proper knowledge to confidently go into production with a robust, ready, and scalable analytics cluster capable of handling the......more

Updated features and a new addition to Mobile Quality Assurance

As you may know, the IBM Mobile Quality Assurance (MQA) team recently released the latest MQA SDKs. If you have not yet used the old or the new version, try MQA on Bluemix.The native iOS and Android SDKs remained much the same. However, the JavaScript hybrid SDK for IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation saw some major changes, and a new Apache Cordova hybrid SDK was born! For all of you eager developers wanting to learn the latest and greatest changes to this family, continue reading.Apache Cordova SDKYou can use the new Apache Cordova SDK to instrument MQA to work with pure......more

How to Customize Ionic Styles in MobileFirst Platform/Ionic Hybrid Application

Before getting started, I would like to give the credit to my teammate Jeff Tennenbaum, who figured out how to get this working.When building hybrid mobile applications using MobileFirst Platform (MFP), part of the process is to choose a JavaScript framework to speed up the development of mobile applications (e.g., Ionic, jQuery Mobile, Dojo, etc.). In this blog, we will use Ionic for our hybrid application. One of the common things developers do is to add their custom styles. The recommended way of working with custom styles in Ionic is by using Sass, a powerful CSS language extension.Before being able......more

Connect your iOS 9 app to Bluemix today

Our mobile backend applications are compatible with iOS 9. We tested our samples after upgrading them to the iOS 9 SDK, and they worked with Bluemix without any further updates.The following boilerplates and services support iOS 9: MobileFirst Services Starter boilerplate Push for iOS 8 (Push Notifications) service Advanced Mobile Access (Mobile Client Access) service Cloudant mobile extensions</ul>The following boilerplates and services have toleration support for iOS 9: Mobile Cloud boilerplate Push service Mobile Application Security service Mobile Data serviceFor more information about what’s new in iOS 9, check out the iOS 9 release notes.Although your app will work with......more

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation is ready for iOS 9. Are you?

The recent announce of the much anticipated iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus and iPad Pro as well as iOS 9.0 release has caused quite a bit of activity in the mobile ecosystem. Consumers are quick to adopt the newest devices and operating system, and the expectation is that their existing apps continue to work seamlessly after the upgrade. This means organizations delivering mobile apps for iOS must move quickly to test, build, and deliver their apps for the new platform and devices. Considering the heightened expectations and tight timeline, this can be a daunting task for organizations. That said, organizations......more

Hybrid Mobile Development and MobileFirst 7.1 - Increasing the Awesome

Working with hybrid mobile apps and MobileFirst 7.0 was a bit complex as the process was somewhat removed from what Cordova developers were used to. The good news is that MobileFirst 7.1 makes it dramatically easier to integrate hybrid mobile apps. As a hybrid mobile developer myself, this was music to my ears....more

Getting Started With IBM MobileFirst and Node.js APIs built with LoopBack

IBM recently announced the acquisition of StrongLoop, creators of the LoopBack enterprise Node.js framework and active contributors to the Node.js community....more

Configure Push notifications proxy for MobileFirst Server

There are cases where security guidelines / restrictions in the datacenter mandate that servers inside the datacenter cannot open outbound connections to the internet. The MobileFirst server needs to open outbound connections to the platform specific cloud push notification services like Apple Push Notification service (APNS), Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) or the Windows Notification service (WNS). In such cases, communicating via a proxy is a preferred option. A Proxy can be configured to contact the Push mediators and send out notifications, masking MFPF server identity....more

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation support for iOS 9

Note: Apps that are built with IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation v6.0 to v7.1 are supported on iOS 9 GM Seed build. </p>...more

ATS and Bitcode in iOS 9

Note: Starting IBM MobileFirst Foundation 8.0 Bitcode is now supported....more

How to enable App Transport Security for iOS 9 in IBM MobileFirst Platform Server

App Transport Security is one of the new features enforced by Apple to improve secure communications between App and Web Services. This feature is available from iOS 9 or later. This post talks about how to enable transport security on IBM MobileFirst Platform Servers.App Transport Security, in simple words, mandates the application to communicate with a web service over TLS version 1.2 protocol and use connection ciphers that provide forward secrecy. This means the developer has to ensure that the web service to which his application is communicating is deployed on a web server that supports TLS version 1.2 and......more

Integrating StrongLoop with MobileFirst Platform

OverviewMost mobile applications need to access data stored in the enterprise's back-end system of records and other back-end systems. The traditional way for accessing those back-end systems in MobileFirst Platform (MFP) is using adapters. Adapters are pieces of code written in JavaScript that are called fom the mobile application using RPC over HTTP and that make a call to some back-end system....more

Integrating MQA into Xamarin.Android app

It all started when I received an email seeking help on using MQA or to be more precise integrating MQA into Xamarin based android app. Before jumping into addressing the problem, let's define MQA....more

MobileFirst Platform support for Android Marshmallow

This blog post will be continuously updated with the latest updates from testing IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation with Android Marshmallow</p>...more

Connecting Securely to On-Premise Backends from MobileFirst on IBM Bluemix containers

Note: This procedure is no longer applicable. Use the VPN service for MobileFirst Platform Foundation 7.1 on Containers. For instructions for MobileFirst server running on Liberty buildpacks and Mobile Foundation Bluemix service (which also runs on Liberty buildpack), pl refer to this blog post ....more

Filling in the blanks with 7.1 Analytics

Sometimes you may want to take your analytics data beyond the console....more

First lab series for MFP 7.1 has been released

We just published first hands-on labs series based on MobileFirst Platform 7.1....more

Integrating IBM MobileFirst on Bluemix Containers with Bluemix Services

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation v7.1 is enabled to run on IBM Bluemix using the IBM Containers....more

Importing Visual studio Cordova project with Ionic and AngularJS into MobileFirst Platform

Let me start this post with a disclaimer that "Don't panic by reading the post title". It might look bit lengthy, but still summarises what we are trying to achieve here.Let me explain you in four steps,...more

Handling binary responses in native Android using Java adapters

This is a follow up to Handling binary responses in native iOS using Java adapters....more

Try on Bluemix and migrate to on-prem MobileFirst Platform

Contributed By : Chethan Kumar SN (chethankumar.sn@in.ibm.com) and Vittal Pai (vittalpai@in.ibm.com)...more

Xamarin SDK for IBM MobileFirst 7.1 is live

Last week, we announced the general availability of IBM MobileFirst Platform v7.1. Today, we are announcing the availability of the Xamarin SDK for IBM MobileFirst Platform v7.1. Xamarin developers can exploit the new APIs in v7.1. You can download the SDK from the Xamarin Component Store....more

Debugging a MobileFirst Sliverlight and Windows 8.1 Universal Apps

In this blog I will share a few ways of debugging or troubleshooting an MobileFirst Windows Silverlight and Windows 8.1 Universal apps (Desktops, tables and phones). I will be debugging JavaScript code, managed code (C#), native code (C/C++) and combination of these.Basically we will cover...more

Windows Universal apps and more: Part 2 - full support in MobileFirst 7.1

IBM MobileFirst 7.1 has started the support for the Windows Universal app development paradigm. In a previous post I had explained a manual procedure of developing a C# Windows universal app using MobileFirst 7.0 DLLs. That post also explained in detail the Windows 8.1 Universal App development paradigm. Starting with MFP (MobileFirst Platform) v7.1 support was added for Windows 8.1 Universal apps as environments....more

Certificate Pinning in IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation 7.1

New in IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation 7.1 are several Hardened security features.One of these features is Certificate Pinning....more

Converting a MobileFirst Hybrid application to a Cordova application

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation v7.1 introduces support for creating Cordova applications using the MobileFirst Command Line Interface (CLI).In this type of application, the MobileFirst SDK is packaged into a Cordova plug-in and is served as such along-side other core Cordova plug-ins and 3rd party Cordova plug-ins....more

Handling the Applicative State in MobileFirst Platform Foundation v7.1

In previous versions of MobileFirst Platform Foundation, the logged-in state of clients was wholly dependent on an HTTP session. After logging in, the end user remained logged in only as long as the HTTP session was alive. If either the application restarted, or the HTTP session ended, the end-user was automatically logged out....more

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation 7.1 is here

We are pleased to announce the Generally Availability of IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation 7.1!This new release is packed with many fixes and new features. Review the full list in the Release Notes....more

Integrating 3rd party Cordova plug-ins in Worklight/MobileFirst 6.x - 7.0

When developing mobile applications you may come across situations where you will need to incorporate functionality that is not readily available to implement in Hybrid applications. This can be solved by integrating 3rd party Cordova plug-ins in your application. However, there are some hurdles standing in the way to achieving this integration:...more

Saving, Encrypting and Showing Images using Cloudant

OverviewThis blog post is based on Saving and Retrieving Images using Cloudant with HTTP Adapters that I made a while ago using cloudant to store a base64 encoded image. Instead of saving the encoded image I will encrypt it using WL.SecurityUtils class provided in MobileFirst Foundation. WL.SecurityUtils is a small utility class that provides encryption and decryption of data using the Stanford Javascript Crypto Library (SJCL). In addition, I will not be covering the database creation or the Cordova plugin integration you can find that in the previous blog....more

CVE-2015-1835: Remote exploit in Apache Cordova

As of June 5th 2015, this blog post acknowledges that IBM is aware of a recently published remote exploitation in Cordova for Android devices....more

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation is ready for Windows10

With contributions from Rahul Raghuvanshi & Geet Manghnani....more

Serving Data to the Apple Watch & other Wearables with IBM MobileFirst

Since Apple recently announced they’ve achieved over $1B in sales with the Apple Watch and taken over 75% of the smartwatch market, I figured a friendly reminder that you can power the Apple Watch (and other wearable platforms) easily, securely, and efficiently with the IBM MobileFirst Platform can’t hurt… All those great features that the MobileFirst Platform brings to your mobile development process are also easily accessible to your wearable apps, including (but not limited to) data adapters, remote logging, operational analytics, push notification management, and more.</p>...more

IBM MobileFirst Platform and iOS 8.4

iOS 8.4 is now public. All the flagship features such as JSONStore, authentication, notifications, app management capabilities, server connectivity and adapter invocation/chaining, Cordova plug-ins, common UI controls, native pages, native elements in hybrid pages, Analytics and logging all work as expected....more

Retargeting your MobileFirst Windows Phone apps to 8.1

If you're developing Hybrid applications for Windows Phone, you might have noticed that Visual Studio allows you to retarget your apps to Windows Phone 8.1. If your using the Visual Studio 2013 Profession Edition (Update 2 or higher), you have the choice on whether your can retarget your app or not. However, if you are using the Express edition of Visual Studio, you will be forced to retarget your app....more

MobileFirst tweet notifications on Apple Watch (Swift)

In this blog we will do the following: Create an iOS app and use MobileFirst native API Use a MobileFirst HTTP adapter Implement tag-based push notifications to notify users when new tweets are posted Register a Twitter app and use the Twitter API to obtain a list of recent tweets Use an event source to periodically check for new tweets Create a WatchKit app that displays the list of tweets and handles notifications Pass data between the iOS and WatchKit app...more

An example of using Git, IBM BlueMix DevOps Services and MobileFirst Studio

I introduced some basic concepts around using Git with IBM MobileFirst Platform in the last post. This post will build on that through an example using IBM Bluemix DevOps Services as the host for my repository....more

Source Code Management with IBM MobileFirst Platform

This is a high level overview of managing the source code of your mobile application project in the IBM MobileFirst Platform (MFP). You should come away with enough foundational knowledge to start implementing Source Code Management (SCM) in your own project....more

Introducing Labs: Experience MobileFirst Platform with self-paced instructional videos

Today we put the spotlight on a new section in the MobileFirst Platform Developer Center, to which we call Labs....more





Browse all the blog posts

Ready-to-go Bluemix Web App to speed up MobileFirst Platform Foundation deployment to IBM Bluemix Containers

Have you tried deploying the MobileFirst Platform to IBM Containers before? If yes, you would have used a bunch of...

MobileFirst Analytics - Planning for Production

MobileFirst Analytics – Pre-productionPart of the value of MobileFirst Platform (MFP) Foundation is the out-of-the-box, simple, integrated analytics reporting and...

Updated features and a new addition to Mobile Quality Assurance

As you may know, the IBM Mobile Quality Assurance (MQA) team recently released the latest MQA SDKs. If you have...

How to Customize Ionic Styles in MobileFirst Platform/Ionic Hybrid Application

Before getting started, I would like to give the credit to my teammate Jeff Tennenbaum, who figured out how to...

Connect your iOS 9 app to Bluemix today

Our mobile backend applications are compatible with iOS 9. We tested our samples after upgrading them to the iOS 9...

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation is ready for iOS 9. Are you?

The recent announce of the much anticipated iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus and iPad Pro as well as iOS 9.0...

Hybrid Mobile Development and MobileFirst 7.1 - Increasing the Awesome

Working with hybrid mobile apps and MobileFirst 7.0 was a bit complex as the process was somewhat removed from what...

Getting Started With IBM MobileFirst and Node.js APIs built with LoopBack

IBM recently announced the acquisition of StrongLoop, creators of the LoopBack enterprise Node.js framework and active contributors to the Node.js community.

Configure Push notifications proxy for MobileFirst Server

There are cases where security guidelines / restrictions in the datacenter mandate that servers inside the datacenter cannot open outbound...

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation support for iOS 9

Note: Apps that are built with IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation v6.0 to v7.1 are supported on iOS 9 GM Seed...

ATS and Bitcode in iOS 9

Note: Starting IBM MobileFirst Foundation 8.0 Bitcode is now supported.

How to enable App Transport Security for iOS 9 in IBM MobileFirst Platform Server

App Transport Security is one of the new features enforced by Apple to improve secure communications between App and Web...

Integrating StrongLoop with MobileFirst Platform

OverviewMost mobile applications need to access data stored in the enterprise's back-end system of records and other back-end systems. The...

Integrating MQA into Xamarin.Android app

It all started when I received an email seeking help on using MQA or to be more precise integrating MQA into...

MobileFirst Platform support for Android Marshmallow

This blog post will be continuously updated with the latest updates from testing IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation with Android Marshmallow</p>...

Connecting Securely to On-Premise Backends from MobileFirst on IBM Bluemix containers

Note: This procedure is no longer applicable. Use the VPN service for MobileFirst Platform Foundation 7.1 on Containers. For instructions...

Filling in the blanks with 7.1 Analytics

Sometimes you may want to take your analytics data beyond the console.

First lab series for MFP 7.1 has been released

We just published first hands-on labs series based on MobileFirst Platform 7.1.

Integrating IBM MobileFirst on Bluemix Containers with Bluemix Services

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation v7.1 is enabled to run on IBM Bluemix using the IBM Containers.

Importing Visual studio Cordova project with Ionic and AngularJS into MobileFirst Platform

Let me start this post with a disclaimer that "Don't panic by reading the post title". It might look bit...

Handling binary responses in native Android using Java adapters

This is a follow up to Handling binary responses in native iOS using Java adapters.

Try on Bluemix and migrate to on-prem MobileFirst Platform

Contributed By : Chethan Kumar SN (chethankumar.sn@in.ibm.com) and Vittal Pai (vittalpai@in.ibm.com)

Xamarin SDK for IBM MobileFirst 7.1 is live

Last week, we announced the general availability of IBM MobileFirst Platform v7.1. Today, we are announcing the availability of the...

Debugging a MobileFirst Sliverlight and Windows 8.1 Universal Apps

In this blog I will share a few ways of debugging or troubleshooting an MobileFirst Windows Silverlight and Windows 8.1...

Windows Universal apps and more: Part 2 - full support in MobileFirst 7.1

IBM MobileFirst 7.1 has started the support for the Windows Universal app development paradigm. In a previous post I had...

Certificate Pinning in IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation 7.1

New in IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation 7.1 are several Hardened security features.One of these features is Certificate Pinning.

Converting a MobileFirst Hybrid application to a Cordova application

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation v7.1 introduces support for creating Cordova applications using the MobileFirst Command Line Interface (CLI).In this type...

Handling the Applicative State in MobileFirst Platform Foundation v7.1

In previous versions of MobileFirst Platform Foundation, the logged-in state of clients was wholly dependent on an HTTP session. After...

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation 7.1 is here

We are pleased to announce the Generally Availability of IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation 7.1!This new release is packed with many...

Integrating 3rd party Cordova plug-ins in Worklight/MobileFirst 6.x - 7.0

When developing mobile applications you may come across situations where you will need to incorporate functionality that is not readily...

Saving, Encrypting and Showing Images using Cloudant

OverviewThis blog post is based on Saving and Retrieving Images using Cloudant with HTTP Adapters that I made a while...

CVE-2015-1835: Remote exploit in Apache Cordova

As of June 5th 2015, this blog post acknowledges that IBM is aware of a recently published remote exploitation in...

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation is ready for Windows10

With contributions from Rahul Raghuvanshi & Geet Manghnani.

Serving Data to the Apple Watch & other Wearables with IBM MobileFirst

Since Apple recently announced they’ve achieved over $1B in sales with the Apple Watch and taken over 75% of the...

IBM MobileFirst Platform and iOS 8.4

iOS 8.4 is now public. All the flagship features such as JSONStore, authentication, notifications, app management capabilities, server connectivity and...

Retargeting your MobileFirst Windows Phone apps to 8.1

If you're developing Hybrid applications for Windows Phone, you might have noticed that Visual Studio allows you to retarget your...

MobileFirst tweet notifications on Apple Watch (Swift)

In this blog we will do the following: Create an iOS app and use MobileFirst native API Use a MobileFirst...

An example of using Git, IBM BlueMix DevOps Services and MobileFirst Studio

I introduced some basic concepts around using Git with IBM MobileFirst Platform in the last post. This post will build on...

Source Code Management with IBM MobileFirst Platform

This is a high level overview of managing the source code of your mobile application project in the IBM MobileFirst...

Introducing Labs: Experience MobileFirst Platform with self-paced instructional videos

Today we put the spotlight on a new section in the MobileFirst Platform Developer Center, to which we call Labs....