Live Update feature in Mobile Foundation provides a simple way to define and serve different configurations for users of an application. This is now available as a service that can be installed on-premise. For more details, see here.
Secure invocation of microservices through Mobile Foundation is now possible without using adapters by using API Connector. To learn more about API Connector, see here.
The iFix IF202006021507 introduces a Node.js based odo custom component. Developers can use this component to develop backend for frontend (BFF) or backend microservices that integrate with Mobile Foundation services on Red Hat OpenShift.
The Mobile Foundation tekton pipelines shipped as part of Cloud Pak For Apps has now been enhanced to parameterize the inputs. A new pipeline for testing mobile apps with Bitbar has been added.
DevKit for MacOS is now available as a zip file. To install, you only need to download and unzip the file. Run the DevKit from the extracted folder. There is no installation required.
Model Update and Direct Update has been updated to use WKWebView instead of the deprecated UIWebView in compliance with the Apple App Store guidelines.
Support for adapter grouping. Adapter grouping feature enables you to group resource adapters and run them on a set of Mobile Foundation nodes. The adapter group can be scaled by adding more nodes to the group, based on the adapter load. Learn more.
Mobile Foundation in Cloud Pak for Apps is now bundled with Tekton pipelines for automating common DevOps tasks. Learn more.
DB2 11.5 software bundle update for Mobile Foundation V8.0. Customers can log in to Passport Advantage using their IBM credentials and download the DB2 11.5 software bundle. You can read about the functionality of DB2 servers here and follow the documentation for upgrading to DB2 11.5.
Support for Web Push Notifications. Learn more about sending notifications to web platforms.
The iFix IF202006021507 adds support for Firebase Cloud Messaging SDK v19 and above.
Multi-node discovery now allows for Mobile Analytics to be deployed across multiple OpenShift nodes.
Analytics Receiver component can now be installed using Installation Manager, Analytics Receiver is an optional service that can be set up to receive event logs from mobile applications and then forward them to Analytics server in a phased manner using an in-memory event queue.
The Custom Chart Filter tab in Mobile Analytics console has now been enhanced to allow users to optionally search for custom property values instead of choosing from a drop-down list of values. This is particularly useful when there is a vast variety of property values to choose from for a given property.
Additional Analytics Receiver configurations are introduced to implement OAuth, such as receiver.authorization.server.url, receiver.authorization.client.id and receiver.authorization.client.secret. For more details, see here.
This iFix introduces React Native SDKs for the Live Update service. The React Native SDKs are published on npm. You can find the API reference for the new SDK here.
Support for iOS versions prior to iOS 11 is deprecated.
Support for XCode version prior to 10.2 is deprecated.
Minimum supported API level of Android is API 21 / Android 5.0 /Lollipop.
Deprecating support for versions of Cordova below,
cordova-ios@5.x +
cordova-android@8.x +
Deprecating support for all versions of Windows and Windows mobile except Windows UWP.
Deprecating support for all versions of Ionic below Ionic 3.
Deprecating support for versions of Node.js below 8.0.
Optimized Mobile Foundation database operations and introduced automated purging of records database.
Application Center is now available as a package with DevKit. This enables developers to build apps and publish them to the private store, which is now available as part of the DevKit.
Mobile Foundation now supports Windows Server 2016 SE and Oracle 18c.
Mobile Foundation supports the latest frameworks released by Apple and Google with support for iOS 13, iPadOS and Android 10. The platform also provides an SDK for Swift 5.
When connecting to the enterprise backend, it is possible to leverage the security and analytics of Mobile Foundation platform using the API Proxy. API Proxy proxies the requests to the actual backend. Learn more.
The in-app feedback feature was earlier available in the Mobile Foundation service on IBM Cloud and has now been ported to the on-prem and container distribution of Mobile Foundation. Using this feature users can share feedback from the app in the form of screen shots, annotations and text. An administrator can login to the analytics console to view the feedback received and take necessary action.
Mobile Foundation is now available as part of IBM Cloud Pak for Apps and supports Red Hat Open Shift 3.11 and Red Hat Open Shift 4.2. The services currently available are mobile core, analytics, push notifications and app center. Using this capability developers can build cloud native applications using backend microservices and mobile services.
ML (Machine Learning) models can be executed locally on the iOS mobile device using Apple’s CoreML framework. Mobile Foundation provides the ability to manage the distribution of these models to devices securely. Learn more.
App Authenticity is a security feature, which validates the authenticity of the application before providing access. This feature was available for mobile apps. The feature is now extended for Apple WatchOS apps. Learn more.
Push Notifications now supports the following additional message attributes.
Push Notifications in MobileFirst now supports the HTTP/2 based APNs Push Notifications along with the legacy TCP Socket based notifications. Learn more.
React Native SDK for Push (react-native-ibm-mobilefirst-push 1.0.0) is released with this CD Update.
Mobile Foundation introduces the refresh token feature on iOS starting with this CD Update. Learn more.
Mobile Foundation admin CLI (mfpadm) can now be downloaded from within the Download Center of the Mobile Foundation console.
Starting from this iFix (8.0.0.0-MFPF-IF201810040631), Mobile Foundation adds support for Node v8.x for MobileFirst CLI.
Starting with this iFix (8.0.0.0-MFPF-IF201809041150), a change to remove libstdc++ as a dependency to Cordova projects is introduced. This is required for new apps running on iOS 12. For further details, such as a workaround, refer to this blog post.
Mobile Foundation announces the support for React Native development with the availability of IBM Mobile Foundation SDK for React Native apps. Learn more.
Using MobileFirst iOS SDK and Cordova SDK, you can automate the synchronization of data between a JSONStore Collection on a device with any flavour of CouchDB database, including Cloudant. For more information on this feature, read this blog post.
Mobile Foundation now introduces special kind of tokens called Refresh tokens that can be used to request a new access token. Learn more.
MobileFirst Cordova plugins for Cordova v8 and Cordova Android v7 is supported. To work with the mentioned version of Cordova, you need to get the latest MobileFirst plugins and upgrade to the latest CLI (mfpdev-cli) version. For details on supported versions for individual platforms, refer to Adding the MobileFirst Foundation SDK to Cordova Applications.
using MobileFirst Android SDK, you can automate the synchronization of data between a JSONStore Collection on a device with any flavour of CouchDB database, including Cloudant. For more information on this feature, read this blog post.
Mobile Foundation introduces the refresh token feature on iOS starting with this CD Update. Learn more.
Mobile Foundation has introduced two new pre-built cognitive services adapters for the Watson Tone Analyzer and Language Translator services. These adapters are available to be downloaded and deployed from the Download Center in the Mobile Foundation Console.
A new implementation of application authenticity is provided. This implementation does not require the offline mfp-app-authenticity tool for generating the .authenticity_data file. Instead, you can enable or disable application authenticity from the MobileFirst console. For more information see Configuring Application Authenticity.
Windows 10 UWP apps are supported in IBM Application Center. The user can now upload Windows 10 UWP apps and install the same on their device. The Windows 10 UWP client project for installing the UWP app is now shipped with the Application Center. You can open the project in Visual Studio and create a binary (for example, .appx) for distribution. Application Center does not provide a predefined method of distributing the mobile client. For more information, see Microsoft Windows 10 Universal (Native) IBM AppCenter client.
MobileFirst Eclipse plugin is updated to support Eclipse Neon.
Android SDK has been modified to use a newer version of OkHttp (version 3.4.1) instead of the old version that was previously bundled with the MobileFirst SDK for Android. OkHttp is added as a dependency rather than being bundled with the SDK. This allows freedom of choice in using the OkHttp library for developers and also prevents conflicts with multiple versions of OkHttp.
Cordova v7 is supported. For details on supported versions of individual platforms, refer to Adding the MobileFirst Foundation SDK to Cordova Applications].
Starting with iFix (8.0.0.0-MFPF-IF20170624-0159), Mobile Foundation supports pinning of multiple certificates. Earlier to this iFix, Mobile Foundation supported pinning of a single certificate. Mobile Foundation introduced a new API, which allows connection to multiple hosts by allowing the user to pin public keys of multiple X509 certificates to the client application. This feature is supported only for native Android and iOS apps. Learn more about Multiple certificate pinning support from What's new, under the section What's new in MobileFirst APIs.
Starting with iFix (8.0.0.0-MFPF-IF20170710-1834), Mobile Foundation has introduced pre-built adapters for Watson cognitive services such as WatsonConversation, WatsonDiscovery, and WatsonNLU (Natural Language Understanding). These adapters are available to be downloaded and deployed from the Download Center in the Mobile Foundation Console.
Starting with iFix (8.0.0.0-MFPF-IF20170710-1834), Mobile Foundation introduced a pre-built adapter called Cloud Functions adapter for the Cloud Functions Platform. The adapter is available to be downloaded and deployed from the Download Center in the Mobile Foundation Console.
Starting with this iFix (8.0.0.0-MFPF-IF20170803-1112) pinning of multiple certificates is supported in the Cordova SDK. Read more on Multiple certificate pinning support from What's new, under the section What's new in MobileFirst APIs.
Starting with iFix (8.0.0.0-MFPF-IF20170823-1236), Mobile Foundation supports the Cordova browser platform along with the earlier supported platforms of Cordova Windows, Cordova Android, and Cordova iOS. Learn more.
Starting with iFix (8.0.0.0-MFPF-IF20170901-1903), Mobile Foundation introduced the capability to auto-generate an adapter from its OpenAPI specification. Mobile Foundation users can now focus on the application logic instead of creating the Mobile Foundation adapter, which connects the application to the desired back-end service. Learn more.
Starting with CD Update 8.0.0.0-MFPF-IF201711230641-CDUpdate-01, Mobile Foundation announced the support for iOS 11 and iPhone X on Mobile Foundation v8.0. For further details, read the blog post IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation Support for iOS 11 and iPhone X.
Starting with CD Update 8.0.0.0-MFPF-IF201711230641-CDUpdate-01, Mobile Foundation announced the support for Android Oreo with this blog post. Both native Android apps and hybrid/Cordova apps, built on older versions of Android, work as expected on Android Oreo when the device is upgraded through an OTA.
Starting with CD Update 8.0.0.0-MFPF-IF201711230641-CDUpdate-01, Mobile Foundation user can now deploy Mobile Foundation, which includes the Mobile Foundation Server, Mobile Analytics Server, and the Application Center, on Kubernetes clusters. The deployment package has been updated to support Kubernetes deployment. Read the announcement.