Posts Tagged ‘PhoneGap’
Wednesday, May 15th, 2013
“So how can enterprise app deployment and mobility be sped up?”
This is the burning question posed by James Bourne in an article released yesterday regarding Enterprise app deployment being a struggle for businesses, in the online news journal, appstechnews.com.
It’s an interesting question, and one I’ll circle back to after providing some thoughts to you.
The Backstory
Yesterday, Micro Focus, a software company with branches in the UK and USA, published a press release which included findings from a recent study conducted over mobile app development at the enterprise level.
From the study, 2 major findings arose regarding why companies are struggling with creating, releasing, and maintaining mobile applications. They are:
1. Corporate mainframes are not setup to handle creation and implementation of mobile applications
2. The War of the Operating Systems produces uncertainty with what technology companies should base mobile applications on
The PR goes on to include some additional details on the motivation behind companies shift to a mobile market, which highlighted reactions you would naturally expect a business to follow given the laws of supply and demand.
The Statistics
* Nearly 80 percent of the 590 CIOs & IT directors polled stated mobile dev teams were a blend of in-house and outsourced teams
* In 3 yrs time, 1 in 3 businesses expect a need for 60 percent of their applications to be available for mobile devices
* Over 75 percent are currently facing issues with existing systems not playing nice with mobile or allowing them to go mobile
Breaking The Skills Gap
Mr. Bourne’s article calls out a skills gap in today’s developers and a delay in the ability to push out the high demand of mobile applications by teams. While the ever-growing demand for applications to be moved mobile increases, I can’t help but suggest that perhaps there is not so much a “skills gap” as a gap in the technology being used by today’s companies.
From the article, it seems that most companies (as polled) are using separate technologies and thus separate teams to write mobile applications. Why not use the teams you already have and empower them to use the coding languages they already know, to move enterprises mobile? Why not use a technology that allows you to design a single code-base that can be deployed across desktop and mobile devices? Using such a technology would help combat both the deployment and skills gap. A single code base that creates cross-platform design would instantly increase the number of apps that can be designed – putting you closer to the goal of having 60 perfect of enterprise apps mobile by 2016.
It would stand to reason that instead of utilizing separate tools and systems to do multiple project types, that a single system capable of producing both desktop and mobile applications would be easier managed and most certainly a more economical approach. A singular product capable of moving legacy applications and new applications into a mobile perspective, would divest the need for creating separate teams, and could help companies keep development in-house.
Think Smarter, Not Harder.
MyEclipse Secure 2013 was developed on this premise. You can prevent skills and deployment gaps by covering supposed shortcomings with stellar technology. In a mobile-driven climate such as today, your teams must be able to move you towards the goal of mobility with all haste. MyEclipse Secure 2013 provides this opportunity to businesses. Simply put, we provide a way for your existing teams to rapidly design cross-platform applications for this mobile world.
Be the hero that pushes your company closer to mobility goals. Check out MyEclipse Secure 2013 and see how this innovative solution allows your teams to design quickly across multiple platforms.
Tags: Android, android nexus, app store, apple, Application Development, Genuitec, google, google android, HTML5, iOS, ipad, ipod, Java, MobiOne, MyEclipse, PhoneGap
Posted in Bright Ideas, General, Genuitec, MobiOne, MyEclipse, Opinion, Thought Leadership | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 14th, 2013
Mobilization of legacy applications (MoLA) involves rethinking the app’s user roles and use-cases in mobile contexts. Mobile users are typically more spontaneous and goal oriented in their use of mobile business applications than users of the legacy application. Thus, the mobile app’s requirements should concentrate on identifying and prioritizing the app services that a user on the go will most likely use. The starting point for Mobile PetStore is to optimize features and services for the “guest shopper” role. The JEE6 Petstore application provides the “guest shopper” the ability to browse the store’s inventory of animals and to purchase animals online.
 Scope and Functional Requirements
A pragmatic strategy for the mobile application life-cycle is an incremental product release process with a feedback loop that incorporates usage data to drive the priority and urgency of future app features, i.e., a data-driven, iterative process. The most important “guest shopper” feature of Mobile PetStore is the ability to browse the store’s animal inventory. Using the incremental release strategy, the app’s initial feature will be pet catalog browsing. After the initial app release, we will collect app download and usage data to determine the features to provide in future releases such as shopping cart, social media integration, etc.
Title: Browsing the Store Animal Inventory
User Role: Guest Shopper
Story: A user is able to browse the store’s animal inventory. The animal inventory is a hierarchy represented by a catalog that contains animals categorized by their type, e.g., fish, bird, dog. Each animal type or species of animal is a product in the catalog, e.g., gold fish, parakeet, poodle. The animal entity that a store stocks and sells is known as an item and is a specific type of product, e.g., male goldfish or female black poodle.
The guest shopper accesses the shop’s animal catalog from his smartphone or tablet and drills down through the hierarchy of categories, products and items to find the information he is seeking. The user interface should make maximum use of the available display space.
 - Conceptual Model
Key Design Constraints – The Bottom Line
A primary challenge when mobilizing a legacy application is the technical constraints you must work with as you build mobile app features. In many cases, the organization’s goal is to develop a mobile app with low development costs by simply “bolting-on” a mobile app to the existing legacy app’s services and data with no changes to the legacy app. In cases where the legacy application does not support the mobile app’s use-cases, then only limited extension of the legacy app is allowed. The last thing management wants is to retest and recertify a legacy enterprise application modified to support the roll out of a small set of mobilized features with an unproven ROI. I will take these same constraints into account as I build Mobile PetStore.
Design
A design process I like to take is to create a preliminary design assuming I have no legacy system constraints. Then, systematically revise the design by rolling in constraints, beginning with those having the largest impact.
REST Web Service API Definition and UI Design
It is not uncommon to have limited useful technical documentation when working with a legacy system. Many times, the docs were not updated to reflect the state of the system as it evolved from release to release. In this case, I have almost no documentation on JEE6 Pet Store other than the source code. Rather than rummaging through the code, I decided to deploy it, run the app and learn about it from the outside inward. I will share access to the Petstore project in the next article.
In the following screenshot, I have imported the JEE6 Pet Store project into MyEclipse, deployed it to my local Glassfish server, and used the MyEclipse REST Web Services Explorer to view the app’s API and interactively test it. The REST Web Services Explorer enables you to interactively view and invoke the web service API of any JAX-RS web service. This made it a super simple process to develop familiarity with the web service API.
 MyEclipse REST Web Service Explorer running JEE6 Pet Store My REST Web Service Explorer experiments led to this very simple preliminary conceptual model for the mobile app.
 Mobile Pet Store Model User Interface Design
The data hierarchy is the simple tree, Catalog>Categories>Products>Items. A mobile user interface design pattern for interacting with this type of structure is a linked set of screens, one screen for each datatype. I used Genuitec’s MobiOne product to do a quick layout of the screens in iPhone and iPad formats.
 Mobile PetStore – iPhone UI Mockup
Next Steps
In Part-3, I will dive in and do some programming. I’ll take a look at using jQuery Mobile for a useful UI layout.
Did you miss Part-1? Click here to view the launch of the Mobile PetStore series.
Drawing tools image: www.templay.de
Tags: Android, android nexus, app store, apple, Application Development, Genuitec, google, google android, HTML5, iOS, ipad, iPhone, ipod, MobiOne, PhoneGap, Web Development
Posted in Bright Ideas, Genuitec, How-to's, MobiOne, MyEclipse, Thought Leadership, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Monday, May 6th, 2013
We are back in the office after spending a hectic week in Las Vegas for IBM’s Impact 2013 conference. We are simply exhausted from the long days on the conference floor, and yet incredibly energized over the new contacts we made during Impact! It is certainly a sight to behold, witnessing thousands of people navigating as best they can through a hundred different exhibits, collecting conference loot, and searching for that magic product to solve their software pain points.
This year’s Impact conference, held at the gorgeous Venetian Hotel, was filled with lots of GREAT conversations with existing customers and what we hope will be some amazing newly forged customers. Genuitec has been attending for over 7 years now, however, this year we went in with a difference approach. Our goal being not just to capture information but really spend more time engaging directly with customers and listening to what headaches they’ve been facing in their development environments.
We are thrilled with how this focus shift was responded to. We were able to dig deep into what MyEclipse Blue Secure brings to the table for our WebSphere customers and chat about specific concerns and the ways MyEclipse Blue can help. We also had the opportunity to share with attendees a quick demo of what the new Mobile Tools in MyEclipse 2013 look like. You can view that same demo on our home page by clicking here.
MyEclipse Blue Secure with new Mobile Tools was received with gusto! Attendees were almost as excited as we are about this Mobile First story which allow customers to bring their legacy applications forward with HTML5, JQuery, and PhoneGap/Cordova API power.
Our Secure Delivery Center garnered some major love from customers, who are facing some dynamic challenges not just with software management, but also with security concerns and delivery woes.
We had a great time this year and as one would imagine, we have a bunch of following up and reaching out to do!
We can’t wait to show you the fully unleashed power of MyEclipse Blue Secure and would love to setup a customized demo with you! If you’d like to see MyEclipse Blue Secure with Mobile Tools first hand, you can download a free 30-day trial here or email us at info@genuitec.com to setup a demo with our team.
Tags: ALM, Android, android nexus, apple, Application Development, Eclipse, Eclipse Foundation, Genuitec, HTML5, IBM, IBM RAD, IBM Rational, IBM WebSphere, iOS, ipad, iPhone, ipod, Java, MobiOne, MyEclipse, MyEclipse Blue, open source management, PhoneGap, RAD, Secure Delivery Center, Software Delivery, software distribution, software management, Web Development, WebSphere
Posted in Eclipse, General, Genuitec, Java, MobiOne, MyEclipse, MyEclipse Blue, SDC, Secure Delivery Center, Thought Leadership | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 24th, 2013
We’re just a couple of days away from the annual IBM Impact Conference, held this year in enchanting Las Vegas!
We excited to meet with some of the biggest and brightest companies to see what’s new in the WebSphere realm, as well as talk with those of you attending about our new MyEclipse Blue 2013 workbench!
For those of you who will be attending, please be sure to stop by Booth E-1! That’s where our Genuitec Marketing team will be, showcasing the new MyEclipse 2013 and it gets your projects on the move with all new Mobile Tools powered by HTML5, JQuery and PhoneGap/Cordova technologies.
We have many exciting things to unveil as we get closer to the show floor – as a secret insider tip, I would encourage you to pay close attention to our @MyEclipseIDE twitter feed beginning Saturday, April 27th.
If you’d like to go ahead and setup a meeting time for Impact, please email iris@genuitec.com with your requested time.
We look forward to seeing you at Impact!
Tags: ALM, Application Development, Eclipse, Eclipse Foundation, Genuitec, HTML5, IBM, IBM RAD, IBM Rational, IBM WebSphere, Java, MyEclipse, MyEclipse Blue, PhoneGap, Secure Delivery Center, Software Delivery, software distribution, software management, WebSphere
Posted in Eclipse, General, Genuitec, Java, MyEclipse, MyEclipse Blue, SDC, Secure Delivery Center, Status, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013
Introduction
There are zillions (literally) of Java enterprise applications that are candidates for being repurposed to provide benefit to mobile users. This is first of a multi-part series where we walk through the process of creating a mobile app for one of the most popular Java enterprise (JEE) applications, the Petstore application. We have dubbed the mobile application Mobile-Petstore, and it will provide browsing of the petstore’s catalog of exotic and classic animals. We will build Mobile-Petstore as an HTML5 application for iOS and Android devices. Following is the Petstore web user-interface (top) and a mobile user-interface mockup running on an iPhone5 and a Nexus S Android phone (bottom).
 
About the Petstore JEE Application
The Petstore application was developed by Sun (now Oracle) and first appeared in 2000 as a demonstration of key Java enterprise technologies and design patterns. (Many of us old enough to remember it will recall those painful days of suffering with EJB1.) It was updated around 2007 to use the latest JavaEE 5 technologies of that time. If you Google for the app, you will find it is no longer supported by Oracle. For this article we are using a new implementation of Petstore named Yet Another Petstore (YAP) from Antonio Gonclaves.
 HTML5 Applications – What’s the big deal?
Our plan is to build Mobile-Petstore as an HTML5 application for iOS and Android devices. If you are unfamiliar with HTML5 applications (a.k.a., hybrid apps), they are HTML5 webapps packaged as native apps. When the app is launched on a device such as an iPhone, the app starts up an integrated browser that loads the app’s HTML5 web user interface as if it were native. This simple approach has the benefit of being cross-platform capable (write-once, deploy anywhere) and very affordable to develop because it requires only basic web programming skills.
We will use open-source Apache Cordova SDK (PhoneGap), as it has become the HTML5 app runtime de facto standard and has been ported to run on iOS, Android, Windows 7 Mobile & 8, Blackberry, and less popular platforms. Cordova also provides a cross-platform JavaScript API through with the app can access key sensors and services of the mobile platform.
About Tools and Services
We will be using the latest version of MyEclipse IDE (MyEclipse ver. 2013) for development. MyEclipse 2013 includes cross-platform mobile and HTML5 development tools, which work great with JEE 6 apps like the Petstore. Specifically, we will make heavy use of MyEclipse App Center Builder, a cloud-based service for building native iOS and Android apps.
The user interface will be implemented using the JQuery Mobile HTML5 user interface library and the Knockout.js model-view library (more about this later). Mobile-PetStore will interact with the REST web service implemented by JEE6 PetStore application. The PetStore JEE 6 application is deployed to the Glassfish 3 server using the Apache Derby database for storage. We will say more about the PetStore implementation in a future article.
Next Steps
In Part-2 we will talk about the user experience and outline the REST web service APIs we plan to use.
Tags: Android, android nexus, App Building, app store, apple, Application Development, Genuitec, google android, How To, HTML5, iOS, ipad, iPhone, ipod, Java, mobile apps, mobile development, MobiOne, PhoneGap, Web Development
Posted in Bright Ideas, Eclipse, General, Genuitec, How-to's, Java, MobiOne, Thought Leadership | No Comments »
Monday, March 25th, 2013
EclipseCon kicks off today and we’re ecstatic to be apart of this conference once again!
Today, we’ll be unveiling the new look and capabilities of MyEclipse 2013 which is scheduled for release next week, April 1st! Beginning April 1st, you can download MyEclipse 2013 here.
MyEclipse 2013 will delight Eclipse developers around the world with its sleek new design and ability to mobilize projects and teams. With MyEclipse 2013, customers will now able to build and deploy mobile apps for popular devices while turning legacy applications into mobile using the powerful, new feature-set.
“I’m excited about MyEclipse 2013 as we introduce HTML5 development tools for mobile and web client apps. HTML5 is a central technology of the future for the enterprise.,” said Wayne Parrott, vice president of new products at Genuitec. “And our tools are built on the Eclipse platform so they are available to literally 10’s of millions of developers around the world.”
We can’t wait to experience all that EclipseCon has to offer this year and hear how you are using the latest Eclipse technologies in your development!
If you’re attending EclipseCon, stop by booth 12 to chat with Genuitec’ers Jason, Jed and Amy and learn how we’re changing your development experience and taking your projects into the Future, Now!
 Looking forward to Good Times in Boston!
Tags: Android, android nexus, app store, apple, Application Development, Eclipse, Eclipse Foundation, Genuitec, google, google android, HTML5, iOS, ipad, iPhone, ipod, Java, maven, ME4S, microsoft, MobiOne, MyEclipse, MyEclipse Blue, open source management, PhoneGap, software distribution, software management, Web Development
Posted in Eclipse, General, Genuitec, Java, MyEclipse, MyEclipse Blue, Secure Delivery Center | Comments Off
Thursday, March 14th, 2013
Did you hear that? Zipppp…That’s the sound of the cat being let out of the bag! The forthcoming MyEclipse 2013 will boast the ability to send your projects, new and legacy, to not only your desktop but mobile devices as well, empowering enterprise Java developers to go-mobile without learning anything new.
The new MyEclipse 2013 workbench will provide developers with Cross-Platform Mobile Tools designed on the popular Cordova/PhoneGap platform container. MyEclipse 2013 with Mobile Tools puts the power of HTML5 and JQuery in your hands (or any other popular Javascript library) – making you not only a master of code but NOW a master of mobile development – without the horror of having to learn new coding languages, we might add!
With the power of HTML5, you’ll be able to add audio, video, and API elements to your projects to create complex web applications for mobile devices (Android, iOs) and across Linux, Mac and PC desktops. Mobile Tools will fully support all Cordova/PhoneGap API’s, giving you more freedom of expression. MyEclipse 2013 Mobile Tools will also support JQuery, the most popular JavaScript library in use today. With JQuery you’ll be able to enhance your projects via plug-ins and add animations to your designs.
MyEclipse 2013 with Mobile Tools packs a powerful punch that you won’t be able to resist! We look forward to seeing how you expand your projects with our extensible frameworks.
We hope you’re as excited as we are about MyEclipse 2013, please be sure to check back regularly for release updates or grab the Preview Release here!
Tags: ALM, Android, apple, Application Development, Eclipse, Genuitec, google android, HTML5, iOS, ipad, iPhone, ipod, Java, MyEclipse, MyEclipse Blue, PhoneGap, Software Delivery, Web Development
Posted in General, Genuitec, Java, MobiOne, MyEclipse | Comments Off
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