Tips to make a application multiplatform like Discord - android

I wanna try to make an application like Discord (Groups/Add Friends/Voice Call/Video Call/Streaming) and until now I was focus on messages and on an application for Web(ReactJS or any) and PC/Mac/Linux(ElectronJS or any), and working on backend with NodeJS/ExpressJS/Socket.IO/GraphQL/MongoDB. Recently got a solution for Voice Call and Video Call which is PeerJS, but now I asked myself how would this work in Androd/iOS application? Am I choosing well my frameworks and language? Because of course one Android/iOS user have to be able to join to a Voice/Video with users on PC/Web Is there other frameworks? Not just for Voice/Video Call, all the application. Can anyone please share some documentation or tips?
Thanks

A personal tip would be to refrain from using PeerJS, as it doesn’t support VP8 Simulcast. When creating high-load group video calling software like discord, you need VP8 Simulcast because it splits a stream into different bitrates for different users, dependent on their bandwidth and that of the person streaming.
Consider reading about WebRTC in JS WebAPI! Unfortunately, the main issue nowadays is hosting a Signalling server (which essentially manages who is where in terms of rooms) and TURN Servers (which gets information such as the IP address of a user joining a room).
In terms of the iOS app, and Android App, consider implementing with a language of your choice, such as Xamarin.
Personally, I prefer React Native for mobile applications. Take a look at it online!
Good luck in your venture!

Related

Suggestion for using web framework for mobile app & desktop

I am involved in developing application for mobile sensors, data from these sensors is to be collected using Android/iOS mobile apps. We want the end users to be able to view this data from desktops also. This data is uploaded to be uploaded to our own database(s) from the mobile apps. I have done this development of the prototypes using native applications (iOS/Android) and implemented web services using Django 1.6 with SQL database. This was just for prototype.
We are at stage where we really need to make this into real product with paying customers, so we are in position to revisit our technology stack question. So I am looking for suggestions.
Currently I am thinking of using Play Framework on the server side. I really haven't seen anything compelling that can provide Native app like feel so we will have to keep developing mobile apps using native libraries. We will interface with our web services using REST API. My concern with Play framework is it doesn't seem to have lot of plugins similar to django, but its early days hoping that situation will improve.
Is this right approach we are very small team ( 4 people, we can hire 2 more probably). Given this is this right technology path I am choosing anything I should be looking at?
I have looked at Parse library but doesn't seem to offer too much data flexibility, geared towards more social media aspects.
We will be using StromPath for user management, any other choices I should be looking at for user management?
We really don't want to do a lot of MVC programming on client side, so on desktop app we will keep it simple jQuery/Javascript & html
-Sam
With jQuery mobile you can assure the look and feel like in a native app. The library it self does media queries and stretch or shrink the content accordingly. So in terms of UI you will not face any problem providing native app like look and feel to the users. For client/server communication I recommend normal ajax functionality so you can dynamically add content.
When working with JQM there are certain rules that you will have to obey.

Android app and Web Interaction idea

I am new to android development, I have a website that is for online shopping and I want to make an android app so the smart phone users can also access it. It will use something like PHP post/get, JSON, JavaScript to get values from server and submit forms from app. My question is after doing all these, mean HTTP Connection and all that, is there any need to make a special website for mobile device too, that will be compatible with mobile device? or no need of this, just to open it in mobile app? I have googled it but can't find something useful.
I think most of visitors will visit the normal site instead of installing a unknown app.
It's your own choose, if i have the the choice i would choose both (web and app).
I think it's important to have a user and mobile friendly website.
At least you could make your website responsive so that user have the choice whether they will install a Native app or use the 'web' app.
I've met the same question.
Apps are good-looking and functional.
But the thing is, especially in China, almost everybody around me uses "Wechat" as a daily app. The most important thing Wechat can provide is an entry. By establishing an official accounts, customers can be easily linked to your mobile website. And 1)it's way more convenience than Apps. 2)Mobile website has a less developing cost than an App. 3)With HTML5 spreading to mobile terminals, the interfaces can be cool and the function can be amazing.
So, for middle/little companies, I personally recommend mobile website.

system for bidirectional realtime communication between tablets and server

We are going to build a multiplayer game.
The idea is that every player has a tablet and is connected to a server.
The server should control the game logic, while the clients (the tablets) will only serve as a frontend to the game.
We need to make a decision about the frameworks/programming language we are going to use.
A crossplatform frontend would be cool, but is not mandatory. It has to run on Android devices at least.
The communication between the server and the client must be bidirectional and realtime.
We don't care about a small amount of delay.
Currently we consider an HTML5 client in combination with a javascript server (running upon nodejs) to be the best option.
The communication would be managed by the javascript library socket.io.
The HTML5 frontend can be run either in-browser or as an app (built with PhoneGap).
However we did not decide yet since we want to be sure to make the right choice.
There might be frameworks that can do a better job.
Does anyone know a better solution?
Play 2 is great for this well, but node/socket are great choices too. I would use backbone.js for the front end as it gives you a lot of flexibility and it's easy to keep the views in sync. (there is an example of such an app on my github if you're interested)

What can't you do with an HTML5/Javascript mobile app that you can do with a native mobile app?

I have just started researching creating mobile apps and from what I understand one big advantage of using HTML5/Javascript is that you can write one application that works with both Android and iOS.
I have also read that one of the drawbacks is that there are certain things that you can't do with HTML5/Javascript that you can with a native mobile app.
Is what I stated above correct? What will I not be able to do if I decide to go the HTML5/Javascript route?
While both native and web have their own positives and negatives, the one main advantage that native apps had over web apps was "Offline Access"
However that is now changing as HTML5 has support fo Offline Web Applications.
Some things for iOS:
Background audio/sound effects
Address book
Leverage CoreGraphics & OpenGL for advanced drawing
Camera access
Accelerometer
Limited Calendar Access
It all depends on what you are going to do. If your app needs GPS, the accelerometer, or is very graphics intensive, then a native app is the only way to go.
Otherwise, I would go with something like Sencha Touch for your app for a couple reasons. First off, if you release an update with a HTML5 app, you don't need to force everyone to download it, it will update automatically. Also, as you mentioned, you only need to write one application for all mobile platforms, which expands the potential user base. Lastly, I think the internet on phones is getting fast enough to support internet applications very well, and this is only going to improve in the days to come.
Basically, it all depends on the specific needs of the application. Personally, I would go with HTML5 whenever possible, due to the mobility it gives you with platforms.
I think we can separate this into two lists...
What can be done on a mobile device that is not possible in HTML5:
Push Notifications
Advanced Graphics (3d, OpenGL)
File Uploads (possible on Android but not iOS)
Connect to Address Book
Connect to Calendar
What can be done in HTML5 but is easier or implemented better on mobile devices:
Camera Access
Offline Use
Device Location Services
Sound
Accelerometer
Speed / Slickness of UI (hard to quantify, but apps typically still feel nicer when native)
(Please note the date this was answered on, this landscape could be quite different in 6-12 months or more.)
In theory not much, if you use titanium. http://www.appcelerator.com/products/titanium-mobile-application-development/
Unlimited Extensibility
Titanium’s plug-in architecture allows you code modules in Objective-C or Java to
extend your mobile app with custom native functionality and then call those
modules using Javascript in Titanium.
Though i have never used Titanium and dont know how well this works. I would stick with native development anyhow ... for now.

How to share content/data through other apps in an iOS app like we do in an Android app with Intent.ACTION_SEND?

In Android, we can easily share content (text, images, video etc) through the Intent.ACTION_SEND startactivity api.
I have an app doing that perfectly already, and have a parallel iOS app that I hope to implement the same feature.
Is there any iOS api support or do I have to use 3rd party sdks or code my own interface layer?
Thanks in advance!
You can do that by implementing a custom URL scheme. Also check this blog out.
This long question approaches the techniques for transmitting information as documents. Be aware that due to the sandboxing, "moving" huge piles of data around (from one application to another) will not be straightforward and you will have to slightly rethink your interaction process.
Several sites attempt to list the schemes, but unless Apple decides to publish them, they're bound to be inaccurate.
Use UIActivityViewController for sharing content with social networking apps.

Categories

Resources