Salesforce.com mobile app developers gain security tools

Good Technology has integrated its Dynamics Secure Mobility Platform with Salesforce.com's Mobile SDK to help developers build mobile applications that are more secure and easily managed.

The growing popularity of smartphones and tablets combined with the BYOD (bring-your-own-device) trend presents several challenges to IT departments, including developing mobile applications and then efficiently managing and protecting them. Salesforce.com's Mobile SDK (software development kit) helps with the former and Good's Secure Mobility Platform offers the latter.

The goal with the integration is to make it easier for Salesforce.com developers to build apps compatible with Good's containerization technology, which offers features such as app-level encryption as well as compliance and jailbreak detection. Enterprises can also put in place data loss prevention and automated actions that lock and wipe applications without impacting a user's device or personal data, according to Good.

The Mobile SDK, which is available for Android and iOS, is a key part of Salesforce.com's accelerating mobile push. It lets developers choose between building applications directly for Apple and Google's OSes, web applications or so-called hydrid applications -- which make it possible to embed HTML5 apps inside a native container.

Recently, Salesforce.com announced version 2.0 of the SDK, which added the SmartSync data framework allowing developers to create applications that work with data both off and online.

Good isn't the only mobile management tool vendor that's working with Salesforce. On Tuesday, competitor MobileIron announced Anyware. The hosted enterprise mobility management service lets administrators distribute mobile apps to employees as well as manage their devices from the Salesforce administration console, MobileIron said.

AWS adds SDK support for Windows app developerssupport,Windows,developers

Amazon Web Services has updated its .NET software development kit (SDK) so that developers can now host Windows Phone, Windows RT and Windows Store apps on its services.

AWS enhanced its Microsoft toolset by updating its .NET SDK, giving Windows developers similar capabilities to the already-available SDKs for iOS and Android in AWS.

The update, which was announced in a blog post on Thursday, provides two new enhancements for .NET developers.

Firstly, it means that .NET developers can now connect their Windows apps to AWS services like S3 and EC2.

Secondly, AWS added support for its “task-based asynchronous pattern”, which uses “the async and await keywords and makes programming asynchronous operations against AWS more easily to do.”

The updated SDK is currently only available as a preview for developers.

The latest SDK additions build on several recent updates from Amazon designed to attract Windows workloads to its cloud, including AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell, AWS Visual Studio toolkit, and new guidance for running Exchange Server in AWS.

What developers think of Dropbox as an iCloud alternative

Developers would love to love iCloud. But many of them find Apple’s syncing platform ineffective, unreliable, or worse. Some developers have even pointed to iCloud sync woes as a significant holdup in releasing new versions of their apps.

And now Dropbox, the beloved powerhouse of sync, has taken a direct shot across Apple’s cloudy bow, with the announcement this week of its new Datastore API. Dropbox says that the Datastore API makes simple work of syncing structured data (“like contacts, to-do items, and game state”) across devices—and even platforms: Unlike iCloud, the Dropbox Datastore API works across iOS, Android, and the Web.

Because of the way Dropbox works, it offers one other significant potential advantage over iCloud: Developers who are working with Datastore can actually peek directly at the syncing data on Dropbox’s servers as they test and build their apps, a level of visibility that iCloud simply hasn’t offered to date.

Macworld spoke with several developers to get their thoughts on Datastore as compared to iCloud. Expectations are mixed.

Greg Pierce of Agile Tortoise—maker of sync-friendly apps like Drafts—is pleased by Dropbox’s announcement. “I think it’s exciting to see more players in this space.” Though he’s only played around with Datastore a bit, he said that “if it reliably delivers what it promises, then it’s a potentially very useful API with some real advantages over other sync options right now.”

Pierce said, however, that while “Datastore seems simple to implement,” what it offers doesn’t match directly what iCloud’s Core Data sync does—or is meant to do. That iCloud feature, when it works, should allow apps to reliably sync changes to large, complex databases, without requiring that the full data set be uploaded to the server. Datastore’s “scope is more limited,” Pierce said. All that said, if it works consistently, “that may still make it an attractive option for many apps.”

Charles Perry from Leaf Hut Software thinks Datastore shows promise, too: “Syncing is a notoriously hard problem … Even Apple, with all its resources, couldn’t pull it off. But Dropbox has a proven record in document syncing, so they may be able to succeed where others have failed.”

Not everyone shares Pierce’s cautious enthusiasm.

Tapbots’s Paul Haddad told Macworld that he didn’t even bother looking at the Datastore API. “I don’t really care,” he said. Because it’s not core Apple functionality, Haddad said, “it doesn’t run in the background,” which makes it far less appealing to him. Even with iOS 7’s improved background functionality, Haddad said, Dropbox won’t be able to match the ubiquitous omnipresent syncing that iCloud affords.

Haddad also pointed out that with each successive iOS release since the introduction of iCloud, the under-the-hood mechanics and functionality for its syncing have improved. He’s optimistic that the trend will continue with iOS 7.

Rich Siegel of Bare Bones Software sees the Datastore API as unattractive to many developers in the Apple ecosystem for another reason entirely: “There is no SDK for OS X,” he pointed out, “which makes it an instant nonstarter for any developer who needs to synchronize data between desktop computers, whether or not mobile devices are involved.”

That’s not the only downside for Datastore, either. All three developers mentioned that iCloud doesn’t require users to sign up for a new account, and Dropbox does. That said, “Dropbox has become ubiquitous enough that it is highly likely that someone who downloads your app will already have a Dropbox account and will only need to authenticate with it,” said Pierce, but that’s less assured—and less seamless—than an iCloud-backed option.

“In theory at least, iCloud used with Core Data offers … powerful tools to work with relational data, an extensive query language, [and] tools for working in multi-threaded environments,” Pierce said. Datastore can’t match that functionality. It can’t perform sorted queries, queries that require joining bits of data from multiple datasets, or paginate results—all fairly basic database functionality that’s (at least currently) beyond the scope of what Dropbox offers.

Such features, Pierce said, are a must-have for “larger datasets that cannot all be held in memory.” But he added, “I think the Dropbox Datastore can really shine for apps with small datasets.”

Siegel seemingly concurred: “The question of which service a developer chooses should, I think, revolve around what meets the technical needs of the developer on the way to shipping the product that best suits their customers’ needs.”

If Apple has cause for concern, Perry says, it’s all that cross-platform support that Dropbox offers. “iCloud represents [Apple’s] attempt to lock users into their ecosystem … If Dropbox catches on as a mainstream sync solution, it makes it easier for users to pack up and take their data to other mobile platforms like Android, or even other desktop platforms like Windows.”

“I can imagine a developer will find the Dropbox Datastore API worth a look,” Siegel said, “if their product is not on OS X and they have an interest in structured key/value/record/table database syncing and/or need a solution for both iOS and Android.” If a developer is instead targeting the Apple ecosystem exclusively, Siegel said, iCloud “is the platform-vendor-sanctioned solution, offers integration with the existing platform document and data storage APIs, and is available as part of the stock OS install at no charge.”

Siegel continued: “Dropbox does provide valuable services in the SDK, but these additions, while intriguing to some and potentially useful to many, do not represent an alternative to iCloud.”

Of course, if you want your app to sync to any non-Apple device, or to sync to your service’s website, iCloud won’t work. Said Pierce, “[Dropbox’s] additional flexibility of being able to access that data on Web or Android-based clients is attractive for many apps as well, and not something Apple offers.”

Siegel added: “Anyone who’s been working on iCloud thus far has either made it work, is in a holding pattern waiting for developments, or has gone on to devise and implement an alternative strategy. Although the Datastore API may look promising, in none of those cases do I expect a developer to drop what they’re doing and try to adopt it if they already are in the process of executing an existing plan.”

If your app’s needs can be met by (and synced with) Datastore, added Perry, “then I think you’d be crazy to not at least consider it. The integration won’t be as seamless as iCloud promises to be, but the Dropbox Datastore API opens up all kinds of business opportunities that aren’t possible with iCloud.”

“Ultimately,” Pierce said, Dropbox Datastore “will be judged on how reliably and efficiently it can deliver sync data”—especially because “iCloud Core Data [sync] sounds great on paper, but it practice has not delivered on its promises. If Dropbox can deliver and continue to build on this platform, I think they can become a real player in the database sync arena.”

Developers express enthusiasm for Firefox OS, survey shows

Developers find Firefox OS the most compelling among new smartphone OSes, generating more interest than Tizen and BlackBerry 10, even though no commercial products have been launched for it yet.

 

For the first time IDC and cross-platform tool vendor Appcelerator asked participants in their quarterly mobile developer survey how they felt about Firefox OS, Tizen and Ubuntu, and Mozilla's platform came out on top.

 

"I was down in Brazil about a month ago and there was a massive interest in Firefox OS. Everybody came to talk to me about Firefox OS," said Michael King, CEO at Appcelerator.

 

About 25 percent of the respondents said they were very interested in Mozilla's platform, compared to 19 percent for Ubuntu and only 9 percent for Tizen. Developer interest for Amazon's Kindle Fire tablets and BlackBerry 10 is also trailing Firefox OS.

 

Firefox OS is built around applications written using HTML5. It is being pitched as a better alternative for low-end smartphones in developing markets, where it will compete head-to-head with cheap Android phones. A lot of the growth in the smartphone sector is expected to come from that segment of the market as an increasing number consumers in countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia and China buy smartphones, according to market research company Canalys. In total, developing markets will contribute up to 80 percent of the volume growth this year, it said.

 

Developers aren't the only ones who have shown an interest in the platform. Last week, electronics manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group said it plans to hire up to 3,000 people in Taiwan to bolster its Firefox OS push. Earlier this month, the company also said it is developing more than five devices that will run the OS.

 

Companies like ZTE, LG Electronics, T-Mobile, Telefónica and Qualcomm are also backing Firefox OS. The first smartphones are expected to arrive soon. Not everyone is ready to get behind the OS. With money from Intel, Appcelerator has added support for Tizen to its development platform.

 

"[Intel] recognized that without developers and applications you are not selling any devices," King said.

 

So far, the company hasn't prioritized Firefox OS because it already allows users to build applications for the platform using HTML5. But, because of the demand, a future port is definitely possible, according to King.

 

Even though Mozilla is seemingly doing better than the backers of the other new platforms, the company still has a lot of work to do before it reaches the level of interest developers are showing for iOS, Android and to a lesser extent Windows Phone. About 87 percent of respondents said they were very interested in Apple's iOS and 78 percent showed the same level of interest for Android. Even though more apps are added all the time, the survey underlines that Microsoft and its partner Nokia are still struggling to attract developers. About 37 percent said they were very interested in Windows phones.

 

The second quarter edition of IDC and Appcelerator's survey showed a growing interest in developing mobile apps for enterprises as well. The number developers who are expecting to build either customer facing business-to-business or employee facing applications has grown from 29 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 to 43 percent. This evolution -- consumer opportunities first, followed by enterprise apps and adoption -- mirrors that of the Web, but the rate of change is much faster, according to IDC and Appcelerator.

 

There is also a growing interest in developing apps for tablets. Where iOS and Windows are concerned, developers showed roughly the same level of interest for smartphones and tablets.

 

"That is a really astounding fact because the tablet audience is significantly smaller. But we couple that with what we are hearing from our enterprise customers, and a lot of them are moving to tablets as the primary computing platform for a number of job functions," King said.

 

Google is still struggling to drum up the same level of interest for Android-based tablets as for smartphones; the difference in interest is 12 percentage points, easily the widest phone-tablet gap among the major platforms, according to IDC and Appcelerator. However, interest for Google's Nexus tablets is growing among developers, King said.

 

Appcelerator and IDC surveyed 6,046 Appcelerator Titanium developers between April 18 and 22.

 

Follow me on Twitter @sajilpl

Kinect for Windows developer's kit slated for November, adds 'green screen' technology

Microsoft’s march toward a voice- and gesture-controlled Windows experience just picked up momentum. On Wednesday the company reiterated that a final version of its Kinect for Windows sensor would be available for retail customers next year, and teased an interim solution for people who just can’t wait: This November, Microsoft will sell a $399 kit that includes a developer’s version of the sensor along with a marker to buy the final version when it becomes available, Bob Heddle, the director of Microsoft’s Kinect for WIndows program, said in an interview.

 

Kinect for Windows is the commercial version of the Kinect sensor that Microsoft added to the Xbox 360 game console. The sensor bar, using technology developed by Israeli startup PrimeSense, allows the console to “see” and “hear” users and objects.

 

The same core technology used in the Xbox One Kinect will appear in the upcoming developer's kit. You shouldn’t expect to use Kinect for Windows to navigate Photoshop with a wave of your hand, because the technology is currently envisioned to appear only in business environments. “I would imagine that most consumers will see this in interactive retail screens, for example,” said Heddle in an interview in May.

 

Microsoft launched the Kinect for Windows program in February last year, when it first began making available a version of the Xbox 360’s Kinect sensor available for developer use. The retail price of that product is $249, but developers can purchase it from Amazon for $220. In all, Microsoft will ship three versions of Kinect for Windows: the old Xbox 360 sensor, the development version due in November that’s based on the Xbox One Kinect, and the “final version” available next year.

 

Both the older Kinect for Windows sensor and the new version employ an embedded “depth camera” to track users across a room, running skeletal tracking and other technologies to sense user movements. While the Kinect sensor was designed for playing games—for example, the "Dance Central" games use Kinect to determine if players are performing dance moves correctly—the Kinect for Windows sensor is intended for applications outside of traditional computing environments.

 

Image: MicrosoftThe new Kinect technology offers improved skeletal tracking. Microsoft has demoed Kinect for WIndows inside an 18-foot-tall animatronic demon, for example, and has used it to power a Barbie-themed “virtual closet” that allows kids to try on clothes. “Green screen” technology using Kinect has also been implemented by Personify. In this application, the user’s gestures navigate through a PowerPoint presentation—on top of which the user’s face is superimposed.

 

Microsoft plans to release the fourth major version of the Kinect for Windows SDK, version 1.8, in September. Probably the most interesting feature will be the ability to strip out the background behind a person and replace it with a background of the developer’s choice—Microsoft’s version of the Personify “green screen” option. Microsoft will also allow developers to program the Kinect Interactions—gestures that include “gripping” to pan the screen, for example—in HTML, Heddle said.

 

Microsoft will also leverage the improved Kinect sensor found within the Xbox One to improve KinectFusion, its technology that can “scan” an object in 3D by waving the Kinect sensor around like a magic wand, creating a virtual, computer-generated image of the object in 3D. The older KinectFusion technology scanned only in black and white, while the latest version will apply color textures that the sensor “sees,” Heddle said.

 

There will be limited quantities of the developer kit in November, Heddle said, and signups begin Wednesday. Microsoft hopes to engage with the developers who have the most interesting ideas. “They’ll have to describe what they’re doing with it. We want people who are really committed to development,” Heddle said.

 

 

While the Xbox 360’s Kinect sensor used technology from PrimeSense, the new version is entirely Microsoft-owned, with knowledge gained from two companies that Microsoft acquired, Canesta and 3DV Systems. “We wanted to own this technology down to the silicon,” Heddle said. “We’re invested in this area for the long term.”

 

Twitter: @sajilpl