enterprise digital assistant
A portable data terminal, or shortly PDT, is an electronic device that is used to enter or retrieve data via wireless transmission (WLAN or WWAN). They have also been called enterprise digital assistants (EDA), data capture mobile devices, batch ...
s or mobile phones. These software applications are designed to run on mobile devices, such as a smartphone or tablet computer. These applications can be
pre-installed
Pre-installed software (also known as bundled software) is software already installed and licensed on a computer or smartphone bought from an original equipment manufacturer (OEM).web browser. Application software developers also must consider a long array of screen sizes, hardware specifications, and configurations because of intense competition in mobile software and changes within each of the platforms. Mobile app development has been steadily growing, in revenues and jobs created. A 2013 analyst report estimates there are 529,000 direct ''app economy'' jobs within the EU then 28 members (including the UK), 60 percent of which are mobile app developers.
As part of the development process, mobile user interface (UI) design is also essential in the creation of mobile apps. Mobile UI considers constraints, contexts, screen, input, and mobility as outlines for design. The user is often the focus of interaction with their device, and the interface entails components of both hardware and software. User input allows for the users to manipulate a system, and device's output allows the system to indicate the effects of the users' manipulation. Mobile UI design constraints include limited attention and form factors, such as a mobile device's screen size for a user's hand(s). Mobile UI contexts signal cues from user activity, such as location and scheduling that can be shown from user interactions within a mobile app. Overall, mobile UI design's goal is mainly for an understandable, user-friendly interface. Functionality is supported by
mobile enterprise application platform
A mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP) is a suite of products and services that enable the development of mobile applications. The term was coined in a Gartner Magic Quadrant report in 2008 when they renamed their “multichannel access ...
s or integrated development environments (IDEs).
Mobile UIs, or front-ends, rely on mobile back-ends to support access to enterprise systems. The mobile back-end facilitates data routing, security, authentication, authorization, working off-line, and service orchestration. This functionality is supported by a mix of middleware components including mobile app server, mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), and service-oriented architecture (SOA) infrastructure.
Platform
The platform organizations needed to develop, deploy and manage mobile apps are made from many components and tools which allow a developer to write, test and deploy applications into the target platform environment.
Front-end development tools
Front-end development tools are focused on the user interface and user experience (UI-UX) and provide the following abilities:
* UI design tools
* SDKs to access device features
* Cross-platform accommodations/support
Notable tools are listed below.
Back-end servers
Back-end tools pick up where the front-end tools leave off, and provide a set of reusable services that are centrally managed and controlled and provide the following abilities:
* Integration with back-end systems
* User authentication-authorization
* Data services
* Reusable business logic
Available tools are listed below.
Security add-on layers
With bring your own device (BYOD) becoming the norm within more enterprises, IT departments often need stop-gap, tactical solutions that layer atop existing apps, phones, and platform component. Features include
* App wrapping for security
* Data encryption
* Client actions
* Reporting and statistics
System software
Many system-level components are needed to have a functioning platform for developing mobile apps.
Criteria for selecting a development platform usually contains the target mobile platforms, existing infrastructure and development skills. When targeting more than one platform with cross-platform development it is also important to consider the impact of the tool on the user experience. Performance is another important criteria, as research on mobile apps indicates a strong correlation between application performance and user satisfaction. Along with performance and other criteria, the availability of the technology and the project's requirement may drive the development between native and cross-platform environments. To aid the choice between native and cross-platform environments, some guidelines and benchmarks have been published. Typically, cross-platform environments are reusable across multiple platforms, leveraging a native container while using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the user interface. In contrast, native environments are targeted at one platform for each of those environments. For example, Android development occurs in the Eclipse IDE using Android Developer Tools (ADT) plugins, Apple iOS development occurs using Xcode IDE with Objective-C and/or Swift, Windows and BlackBerry each have their own development environments.
Mobile app testing
Mobile applications are first tested within the development environment using emulators and later subjected to field testing. Emulators provide an inexpensive way to test applications on mobile phones to which developers may not have physical access. The following are examples of tools used for testing application across the most popular mobile operating systems.
* Google Android Emulator - an
Android
Android may refer to:
Science and technology
* Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human
* Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system
** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
emulator that is patched to run on a Windows PC as a standalone app, without having to download and install the complete and complex Android SDK. It can be installed and Android compatible apps can be tested on it.
* The official Android SDK Emulator - a mobile device emulator which mimics all of the hardware and software features of a typical mobile device (without the calls).
* TestiPhone - a web browser-based simulator for quickly testing iPhoneweb applications. This tool has been tested and works using Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2 and
Safari 3
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple. It is built into macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, and uses Apple's open-source browser engine, WebKit, which was derived from KHTML.
Safari was introduced in Mac OS X Panther in January 2003. It was includ ...
.
* iPhoney - gives a pixel-accurate web browsing environment and it is powered by
Safari
A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an importa ...
. It can be used while developing web sites for the iPhone. It is not an iPhone simulator but instead is designed for web developers who want to create 320 by 480 (or 480 by 320) websites for use with iPhone. iPhoney will only run on
OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
10.4.7 or later.
* BlackBerry Simulator - There are a variety of official BlackBerry simulators available to emulate the functionality of actual BlackBerry products and test how the device software, screen, keyboard and
trackwheel
A scroll wheel is a wheel used for scrolling. The term usually refers to such wheels found on computer mice (where they can also be called a mouse wheel). It is often made of hard plastic with a rubbery surface, centred around an internal rotary ...
will work with application.
* Windows UI Automation - To test applications that use the Microsoft UI Automation technology, it requires Windows Automation API 3.0. It is pre-installed on Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and later versions of Windows. On other operating systems, you can install using Windows Update or download it from the Microsoft Web site.
* MobiOne Developer - a mobile Webintegrated development environment (IDE) for Windows that helps developers to code, test, debug, package and deploy mobile Web applications to devices such as iPhone, BlackBerry,
Android
Android may refer to:
Science and technology
* Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human
* Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system
** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
, and the Palm Pre. MobiOne Developer was officially declared End of Life by the end of 2014.
Tools include
*
eggPlant
Eggplant ( US, Canada), aubergine ( UK, Ireland) or brinjal (Indian subcontinent, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa) is a plant species in the nightshade family Solanaceae. ''Solanum melongena'' is grown worldwide for its edible fruit.
Mos ...
: A GUI-based automated test tool for mobile app across all operating systems and devices.
* Ranorex: Test automation tools for mobile, web and desktop apps.
*
Testdroid
Testdroid is a set of mobile software development and testing products by Bitbar Technologies Limited.
Company
Bitbar was founded in 2009, with offices in Cambridge, United Kingdom, Wrocław, Poland, and Oulu, Finland.
Marko Kaasila is a founder a ...
: Real mobile devices and test automation tools for testing mobile and web apps.
Mobile application management
Mobile application management (MAM) describes the software and services responsible for provisioning and controlling access to internally developed and commercially available mobile apps used in business settings, on both company-provided and 'bri ...
Mobile computing
Mobile computing is human–computer interaction in which a computer is expected to be transported during normal usage, which allows for the transmission of data, voice, and video. Mobile computing involves mobile communication, mobile hardware ...
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Mobile-device testing
Mobile-device testing functions to assure the quality of mobile devices, like mobile phones, PDAs, etc. It is conducted on both hardware and software, and from the view of different procedures, the testing comprises R&D testing, factory test ...
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Mobile enterprise application platform
A mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP) is a suite of products and services that enable the development of mobile applications. The term was coined in a Gartner Magic Quadrant report in 2008 when they renamed their “multichannel access ...
Mobile web development
Web development is the work involved in developing a website for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network). Web development can range from developing a simple single static page of plain text to complex web applications, ...
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Mobile workflow Mobile Workflows within mobile technology are specialized workflows. The purpose is to address deployment of workflows in mobile device infrastructure, thus enabling automation of process interaction for traditional business processes from within th ...
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Multi-channel app development
In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software r ...
On-Device Portal
On-Device Portals (ODPs) allow mobile phone users to easily browse, purchase and use mobile content and services. An ODP platform enables operators to provide a consistent and branded on-device experience across their broadening portfolio of servic ...
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WURFL
WURFL (Wireless Universal Resource FiLe) is a set of proprietary application programming interfaces (APIs) and an XML configuration file which contains information about device capabilities and features for a variety of mobile devices, focused ...