Device Detection in the Cloud: DeviceAtlas Personal
In this article we offer full tutorial on how to use the preview release of the service. So what is DA Personal? The purpose of DeviceAtlas Personal is to make device detection even easier. The main difference between DA Personal and DeviceAtlas, is that Personal is a Web service. It works as follows: a user visits your Web site on his mobile device. You then forward the User-Agent HTTP request header to the DA Personal service, and the response you receive will contain information about the user's device. That's it! more...
SMS Bubble UI in iPhone Apps
Users of iPhone are no stranger to the built-in SMS application that displays your messages using cute little bubbles (see Figure 1). However, this innovative UI feature is not exposed to the iPhone developers - you have to create it yourself if you want to have the same look-and-feel of the SMS application. Creating this UI - which I will call the Bubble UI, allow you to represent information in a conversational style. A good application of this is when you are creating a chat application. Messages exchanged between two persons can be shown in message bubbles. more...
Using the PopoverView in iPad App Development
In the previous article, we saw how to develop a new type of application known as the Split View-based application on the iPad. And one of the new views introduced for the iPad is the PopoverView, which you had a quick glimpse of it in action in the previous article. In this article, I will show you how you can use the PopoverView in your iPad application, not just in a Split View-based application. Getting Started with the PopoverView more...
Developing Split View Based Apps for the iPad
The iPad runs on the same OS used by the iPhone and the iPod touch, which means that developers who are already familiar with iPhone programming are able to quickly write applications for the iPad. In fact, most (if not all) iPhone applications should run without any problem on the iPad, albeit in a smaller frame size, with an option to pixel-double. However, to really make full use of the large size screen afforded by the iPad, you would need to redesign your UI to take into account the extra screen space. more...
Offline iPhone Web Apps
One of the several features outlined in the HTML 5 specification is the support for Web applications that continue to work while they are offline. This feature is very useful for Web applications because a Web application can be loaded just once and then run offline without needing a persistent Internet connection, making it behave just like a locally installed native application. Dashcode supports the manifest attribute available in the HTML 5 specifications for offline web applications. And so in this article, you will learn how to write offline iPhone Web applications using Dashcode. more...
Location in iPhone Web Apps
One of the key limitations of developing Web applications for iPhone is that you are not allowed to access the hardware on the device via the Web browser. For example, you cannot access the camera on the iPhone; neither can you access the accelerometer. This seriously limits the kinds of applications you can develop on the iPhone. One notable exception, however, is the support for tracking the location of devices, through a combination of GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular triangulation. more...
Programming Apple Push Notification Services
One of the key limitations of the iPhone is its constraint on running applications in the background. Because of this, applications cannot keep running in the background when the user switches to another application. So, applications that require a constant state of connectivity (such as social networking applications) will not be able to receive timely updates. more...
Sending SMS with SMPP, Kannel and Java
There are many technologies and protocols that can be used to send and receive SMS from an application. This article focuses on sending SMS via a Short Message Service Center (SMSC), with the help of the Kannel SMS gateway. In order for an application to send a SMS, it generally has to communicate with a Mobile Network Operator (MNO) over the Internet. To understand in more detail consider the following example. A Media service provider wants to send a program timetable as an SMS to its end customers. The application is running on a Linux based java application server. more...
A minimal mobile-aware web app with Python & cloud-based device detection
In this article we'll look at a how to make a minimal device-aware web application. The point of this article is not to demonstrate a useful application but rather to show just how little code is required to make an app that is fully device aware, and that can change its presentation entirely depending on the nature of the device accessing it. more...
Build Web Apps for iPhone using Dashcode
So far, much mobile developer attention has been fixated on the iPhone SDK released by Apple to build native iPhone applications. This is understandable, since with the SDK you can write native iPhone apps that take full advantage of the capabilities provided by the device, such as accessing the accelerometer, the camera, as well as obtain geographical locations using Core Location. more...
