Twilio Android SDK vs REST API for Chat and Video - android

I used the Twilio Nodejs and Android SDK quick starter programmable chat and these work great. I am confused by the following statement in the documentation:
The Programmable Chat REST API allows you to control your Chat applications from the server in much the same way you can from the client, except from a service perspective rather than a 1st person one.
Not really sure what this means? Can I develop Android app with out the SDK and use REST API? Why would I do that? SDK seems to be much more flexible and easy to use. Why would you control your app from the server?
What does "except from a service perspective rather than 1st person one" mean?

Twilio developer evangelist here.
If you are building an Android application then I recommend using the Twilio Chat Android SDK.
When the documentation references using the REST API from a service perspective it means that you can use the REST API from the perspective of your application rather than a user of the application. For example, if you need to send a message to your users that appears to come from your application admin you can do so using the REST API. That way you don't need to sign up a user and send messages from it. Alternatively, using the REST API is a good way to send and receive messages as a bot in the your chat system. You can also use the REST API to do system side maintenance on your chat instance (for example, you could close old, unused rooms using the REST API).
I hope this helps or gives you some sort of idea what you can do with the REST API. I still recommend the SDK for your user facing application though.

Related

how to secure android and angularJS using REST API services spring boot backend

I have a project, angularjs webapp (backend java and spring boot) and uses google map too, there is an android app that sends alerts to this webapp and those show location on the webapp’s map. However when I implement spring security it would secure the webapp and REST api, but will prevent the alerts from android showing on the map (can not find resource)….
I want an easy simple way to secure the app without stopping the REST API services, yes I want to secure my API but still want to be able to show the alerts sent from android device, also still accepts new registration from android users....(android users cant access webapp they only register to use android app and will be added to database..they will need to be able to post their info...)
I tried oauth2 using google sing in, but I must be missing something as it wont load,..If you think this is the right approach please confirm...I will further look into it...Or direct me to tutorial or give me any suggestions...
P.S I am using bluemix platform as a service at the moment and CLearDB database service from bluemix
I am a student and all this is new to me...Thanks

Building an app with group messaging feature. Suggestions?

without getting into too many details, I would like to build an app capable of messaging between small groups of people. Basically, I need an API that will allow me to a) create a group message, and b) will allow me to later add people to it based on their selections from the application itself. I am relatively new to server side coding and am looking for some suggestions, tutorials, suggested apis (google hangouts vs facebook vs any other services that would be of use), etc. I already have google plus integration with the client side and server side authentication, so it seems like if something is possible with hangouts that would be the easiest route, but again I am just looking for anything really at this point.
The way I was kind of (hoping) it would work is that some messaging service provides the group chat and gives me an ID to it, which I could then have the clients request to be added to a particular chat and then I pass them back the ID to the chat and it begins an intent that takes them to the app itself that is hosting the chat between my users. Let me know if this is possible please, along with any suggestions!
You might want to try researching the ejabberd messaging server. It is probably going to be a bit heavy for your needs as well as difficult to learn (it is in Erlang) but I've found it extremely steady as a back-end for building a messaging server.

Since Layer.com does not have a web SDK yet, what can I use to integrate it myself for a web-mobile chat app?

Layer looks awesome for mobile development, however, in case we need to build a web to mobile chat, the web SDK is not yet available. Can we integrate it with parse to do so? Or maybe some other solution.
The Web SDK is currently in Early Access so it's available to be used. You could potentially use the combination of the Platform API and Parse cloud code to do a partial chat from web to mobile in the meantime, but it depends on your use case.
I do not know Layer but I think(hope) you can send http request (REST api) to parse and trigger the cloud function. So the cloud function can send your message to your mobile client as a push notification. After that, the only thing that you have to do is handling the push notification cases such that when the app is opened, when the app is closed or when the app is on chat screen. Hope this helps.
Regards.
Another good alternative is Hyphenate. Similar to Layer, but Hyphenate supports both Mobile and Web SDK with rich features and very reliable services.
Parse is good, but shutting down soon, an good alternative is Firebase by Google.
https://hyphenate.io/
https://github.com/HyphenateInc/Hyphenate-SDK-Web

Twilio: making call w/o own server

Just begin to learn Twilio API. My intention is to make call directly from Android phone to any landline number. I have read QuickStart guide, build sample Android application and found that to make a call one need to have his own REST server.
I didn't have any experience with any SIP alike apps, but my understanding was that there's SIP provider server through which I could place a call and that's it... (with any kind of authorisation and so on).
So the question: is any possibility to place call using Twilio without my own server? Or as option - could someone advise me 3d party provider of those server which can be used to place call through Twilio?
Twilio developer evangelist here.
Hey, even better then setting up your own server yourself, you can just head to our Github repo and use the click to deploy button. It requires you to have a Heroku account which you can obviously use for free.
From there, you have your own URL for the application, which you can add to your Android App. So no need to setup your own backend if you don't want to.
The repo takes you through all the steps for configuring your app, but by all means if you have any questions, please do not hesitate in getting back to me.
Hope this helps

Integrate Appcelerator Cloud Services to a custom website made with ASP.NET

I'm really new to mobile world, so I'd like to get some opinion from experienced people.
After several days searching over the internet, I'm wondering if it's possible
integrate Appcelerator Cloud Services to a custom website made with ASP.NET, for example.
Although my mobile application, built with Titanium, it's linked to ACS, and works fine, I don't know if
it's possible to manage data stored in ACS from a custom website. To clarify, in one point there is my mobile application
talks to a webserver (ACS, for example) and other point there is a website, to manage the data stored in ACS.
What do you think, someone achieved this?
Or is it preferable to write a webserver from the scratch, store my data in somewhere, and forget about ACS?
Thank you.
Appcelerator says
Appcelerator Cloud Services (ACS) is a Mobile Backend as a Service
(MBaaS), offering a fast and easy way to build connected mobile apps.
Choose from a library of services such as push notification, status
updates, photo storage, and social integration, or create your own
custom cloud services.
Here in this page - Getting Started: Using the Javascript SDK - you can see how we can use javascript SDK which lets you access the Appcelerator Cloud Services server through some simple to use JavaScript calls. You can use this to develop web-based app.
ACS has a REST API which you can access through anything that supports xhr (which .NET does). For instance, to create a new user in ACS, you use the following link:
https://api.cloud.appcelerator.com/v1/users/create.json?key=YOUR APP APP KEY?email=john.smith#company.com&role=teacher
There are other properties you can tag onto the querystring to create a new user from a REST call. They have a complete API using REST. It's all documented. You can even send push notifications to devices from your custom website using the REST API! It's pretty cool.
http://cloud.appcelerator.com/docs/api/v1/users/create#rest
Good luck!

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