IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation Support for iOS 11 and iPhone X

Every year Apple releases a new version of iOS, and with every new release MobileFirst keeps up the promise of compatibility with latest version, to customers. With each new version, iOS changes are embraced with minimal impact. With this year’s release of Apple iOS11, MobileFirst is pleased to announce the support of iOS 11 on MobileFirst Platform Foundation (MFP) v7.1 and v8.0. For further details, read through our support plan for Android O and iOS 11.

The beta version of iOS 11 has been extensively tested with MFP and details can be viewed at Compatibility tests for iOS 11.. All features of MobileFirst Platform Foundation v7.1 and v8.0 has been tested on iOS11 seed build. If you are an on-premise 7.1 or 8.0 customer or Mobile Foundation Service customer, then read further to learn about MobileFirst compatibilty with iOS 11 .

MobileFirst Platform Foundation v7.1 and v8.0 is compatible with iOS 11 and all the features work well except for a few UI glitches. The following features have been extensively tested:

  • OAuth authorization flow
  • Adapters
  • JSONStore
  • Direct Update
  • Application Management
  • Application Authenticity
  • Analytics
  • Push Notifications
  • Remote Disable
  • Application Center
  • LiveUpdate

The above mentioned features of MobileFirst work well with iOS 11, however few issues maybe noticed, these are documented below.

Disclaimer: Some of the action items that are addressed in the list below are not under IBM’s control. Therefore, we expect developers and IT managers to ensure that their infrastructure is up-to-date according to Apple’s requirements.

Known Issues

  • Starting with iOS 11, Apple has updated WebCrypto API in Safari 11 which is not compatible with the current MobileFirst API. Refer What’s New in Safari 11, for details. As a result, a web app consuming the Web SDK for MobileFirst fails to launch on a device running iOS 11. Updating to the latest version of IBM Web SDK resolves this issue.

  • Starting iOS 11, Apple has modified the way the status bar area is shown on the screen. This change is done particularly to support iPhone X, which comes with a notch in the display. This is important for cross-platform developers using tools such as Apache Cordova or Ionic. This change in behaviour affects any webview based apps ,hybrid apps that use fixed position header bars when they are built for iOS 11.

See our earlier blog post for guidance on how to fix this issue for MobileFirst Platform Foundation v7.1 and v8.0. IBM MFP’s future iFix release shall include the fix, which makes this change available to you when you create a new hybrid project. However, for existing apps the change has to be made in their HTML.

Update : The issue is fixed and published for MobileFirst v7.1. The fix is available with latest iFix release version 7.1.0.0-MFPF-IF201710051201.

  • Though this change is not an issue with MobileFirst, customers must be aware of an issue when using command cordova emulate ios. See here, for more details. To overcome this issue apply the latest Cordova update, using the command cordova platform add ios@https://github.com/apache/cordova-ios/ .

    Update : Cordova has fixed this issue in its latest cordova-ios 4.5.1 version release.To adapt this fix use cordova platform add ios@4.5.1 while adding ios platform to your cordova application.

  • With iOS 11, Apple has modified the UIWebView, this impacts the select drop-down list. The drop down displays incorrect list values. This is a bug with iOS11 (see here and not an issue with MobileFirst. To fix this issue on MobileFirst v8.0 add WKWebView plugin to your cordova project.

  • With new iPhone X release from Apple, there is a new display, which has notch at the top. The cordova/hybrid apps are affected by this new notch introduced in iPhone X. This issue is not addressed/fixed by Apple or cordova, hence, MobileFirst hybrid apps will have rectangular display, as before. A related post that talks about the same issue and a work-around for it is here. Meanwhile, we will continue watching for an update from cordova/Apple on a fix for this issue in their future update/releases, and accordingly, we will adapt those changes into MobileFirst v7.1.

WatchOS 4

Apple has released WatchOS 4 alongside iOS 11. To support watchOS 2 onwards, MobileFirst Platform provides a framework IBMMobileFirstPlatformFoundationWatchOS along with the core IBMMobileFirstPlatformFoundation framework. This framework can be used in WatchKit extension in the Xcode project.

Existing applications that were created using MobileFirst Platform v8.0 watchOS IBMMobileFirstPlatformFoundationWatchOS framework works on WatchOS 4.0 as they did on watchOS 2 and 3. Steps to be followed while developing watchOS application(s) and the limitations can be found here .

Additional Information

For more information on iOS11 features refer here.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Inclusive terminology note: The Mobile First Platform team is making changes to support the IBM® initiative to replace racially biased and other discriminatory language in our code and content with more inclusive language. While IBM values the use of inclusive language, terms that are outside of IBM's direct influence are sometimes required for the sake of maintaining user understanding. As other industry leaders join IBM in embracing the use of inclusive language, IBM will continue to update the documentation to reflect those changes.
Last modified on May 07, 2018