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Cloud Services

In the past year or so, we have witnessed a major shift from client-server to client-cloud. This shift is primarily fueled by two factors: mobile devices exceeding desktop computers and the thousands of different APIs available on the Internet today. What started in early 2000 on eBay and Amazon has become a real revolution in 2012 with thousands of companies, from Twitter and Facebook to AT&T, offering cloud-based services.

REST API
One of the most common ways to access private or public service APIs is via REST requests.

In the client-server approach an organization builds applications that consume its own internal content and resources. However, even large IT organizations such as AT&T, Verizon and Amazon have come to realize that they are no match for the social consumer and social enterprise developers out there. By making APIs publicly available, these organizations hope that developers and “citizen developers” will come and build applications and mobile apps on top of their services.

Citizen developers at work
Analysts at Gartner see a trend toward app creation independent of IT. They predict that by 2014, citizen developers – employees outside of IT and software development – will build 25% of new business applications. In 2007, they built less than 5%.

One of the best-known API success stories comes from Amazon: Its cloud service APIs let outsiders access the company’s massive data centers. Twitter, with its deceptively simple 140-character message model, exploded thanks to its API. In fact, you probably read and write tweets via a Twitter application or mobile app rather than going directly to Twitter’s Web site. Facebook’s Graph API has spawned a whole industry of apps to support its hundreds of millions of users.

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Appery.io mobile app builder got some new and cool stuff in May release.

jQuery Mobile 1.1

jQuery Mobile was updated to the latest stable version 1.1.

Windows Phone Export

We just added Windows Phone code export.

We are also planning to add binary build. For now, once you export the project you can jump to PhoneGap Build and get the binary there. Or, you can always build it yourself.

UI breadcrumbs, plus easier delete

A really nice feature in Appery.io visual builder is the ability to have containers such as grid and place other components inside. To make it super easy to select a particular component we just added breadcrumbs. It makes it very easy to navigate the UI by clicking the component id in the breadcrumbs bar.

In addition to breadcrumbs, we made it very easy to delete an element. Simply click on the red x icon. Clicking on the e icon will open Events view for the component.

Plug-in Properties

With new Plug-in properties, any service information such as API keys can be entered in one place and reused by any number of services. A small but nice feature to save time.

Code generation update

OK, the was requested for a long time. If you name your page MyCoolPage, in the resulting app it will be MyCoolPage.html. If you upload an image called MyCoolImage.png, in the resulting app it will be MyCoolImage.png. Yes, as simple as that, but a very important feature.

One of the really nice features we released in Appery.io Mobile App Builder in April is the option to get iOS binary file for your app (similar to PhoneGap Build).

Now you can create your mobile app in Appery.io and instantly build the iOS binary file (or Android).

As we use the standard iOS build process, you will still need to provide your Apple developer information (nothing we can do about that, more information here on how to get it). The information is then set in project profile:

iOS build settings

The Appery.io team keeps making the great even better, as you can see in this latest release of Appery.io Mobile App Builder. New features include everything from iOS binary builds to updated support for jQuery Mobile and PhoneGap. Read on to find out more. Read the rest of this entry »

ReadWriteMobile has posted an interesting Infographic created by Kinvey mapping the current mobile ecosystem (click on image to view larger version):

(Image source: http://kinvey.com/images/kinvey_backend-as-a-service_mobileecosystem_2100px.png)

First of all thanks to Kinvey for creating this wonderful map and including Appery.io in it (blue Mobile SDK line). Appery.io could actually span 3 different lines: BaaS, Mobile SDK and Mobile API. Appery.io is a cloud-based HTML5 mobile app builder, so it’s not exactly a mobile SDK. In fact, the technology under the hood is HTML, JavaScript and jQuery Mobile. For hybrid apps, the app can be wrapped in PhoneGap, which also provides access to native device features. So, there is no really “custom” SDK.

Second, from the builder it’s incredibly easy to consume any REST API (yellow Mobile API line). Appery.io comes with a pretty nice REST services console where any service can be tested. From the same console, the REST service response (structure) can be automatically created. Once the service is defined, it is mapped to jQuery Mobile UI using a visual mapper (UI to service input, service output to UI).

Thirdly, as most BaaS services (orange line) are exposed as REST, HTML5 mobile app built in Appery.io, can easily connect and use those services.

Lastly, and maybe the most important point is how incredibly fast you can build apps. It sort of all makes sense.. you got cloud-based mobile backend (exposed as REST) and cloud-based app builder to build the apps. It sounds simple.. but a really elegant picture.

This perfectly describes Appery.io. Appery.io is cloud-based builder for creating HTML5, jQuery Mobile, PhoneGap, and RESTful mobile apps.

Originally posted here.

One of the really great features in Appery.io mobile app builder is that you can quickly export the app as mobile Web, Android or iOS.

For Android, you can get a ready for the app market binary file (Release binary). Just take the file and upload it to Android Market. It’s that simple. You can watch a webinar where an app is built, exported for Android and published.

iOS is little bit more involved (Apple requires to provide your developer information to build). There are two ways to go about it. First, export the app as xCode project and then follow the steps outlined in this guide to build the app.

A second option is to use PhoneGap Build cloud service.

We are working on adding functionality where you will be able to build iOS app inside Appery.io.

In mid January we have released an update to Appery.io mobile app builder and now every app (new or old) is based on jQuery Mobile version 1.0.

Now that there is a Free plan, nothing should stop you from building your mobile app.

Lastly, if you need to write any custom JavaScript in your app, here is how.

Appery.io is a Web-​​based plat­form for building mo­bile apps for iPhone, Android, or HTML5. We re­cently launched Appery.io for Musicians to ex­tend Appery.io and show­cased it at the re­cent NAMM show.

Appery.io for Musicians cus­tomizes and fur­ther sim­pli­fies the mo­bile de­vel­op­ment process for mu­si­cian apps. It guides you through a se­ries of steps to grab con­tent you al­ready have in the Cloud. Now all mu­si­cians can have a mo­bile strategy to pro­mote their music.

Want to know more? Want to see it for your­self? Know someone who would be interested?
Join us as award-​​winning per­forming artist Alexa Weber Morales shows how you can create mo­bile apps for your music fans or cus­tomers in less than 10 min­utes! Afterward, Alexa and David Schoenbach will an­swer your questions.

See you there!

Build Your Mobile App in Minutes with Appery.io for Musicians
January 31, Tuesday
11am US Pacific Time
Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/887753456

So you built a really cool mobile app in Appery.io, now you want to export Android app sources and open in Eclipse. Here is how to do it.

1. Export Android sources in Appery.io by going to Export > Android row > Source Code/Eclipse Project
2. Download and extract Eclipse IDE for Java Developers (download link)
3. Download and extract Android SDK (download link)
4. Update Android SDK (may take a long time):
   $<path_to_android_sdk>/tools/android update sdk –no-ui
5. Install ADT Plugin for Eclipse (guide link)
6. Import project to Eclipse:
   • Package Explorer > File > Import… > General > Existing Projects into Workspace > Choose Appery project folder) > Finish
7. Running app:
   • Right-click project > Run as > Android application
8. Building APK:
   • invoke context menu on project > Android tools > Export Signed Application Package

We just returned from app world conference in New York which was a great success. Next week we are heading to 2 more great events: AnDevCon conference and Mountain View JavaScript Meetup.

AnDevCon

Appery.io Mobile Apps Builder is going to be at AnDevCon II (The Android Developer Conference) in San Francisco Bay Area, November 6-9. Stop by our booth and learn how to build Android apps ready for the Android Market using cloud services, all in about 5 minutes. It’s really awesome, I promise.

Mountain View JavaScript Meetup Group

Building apps with Appery.io, A Cloud Service for Building Mobile Apps

Wednesday, November 9, 2011, 7:00 PM

In this cool session you will learn how to build HTML5 and native apps using Appery.io. Appery.io is a cloud-based mobile apps builder that uses HTML5, jQuery Mobile, REST, and PhoneGap to build apps. A real mobile app will be built during the session, which attendees will be able to run and test on their own devices.

Sign up to attend this Meetup.