Is there a way to build and Android and iPhone application that automatically updates its content.
For Example: the user has download the application and we have all of our data on there and what not but then we get another entertainer that is coming to the festival and we want to list them in the app. Do I have to "Publish" an update for the users to download of can all that information be dynamic and automatically retrieved from a server every time the person has internet.
Does that makes sense to anyone, I hope it does.
The short answer is yes.
How you achieve it is to broad a topic without some more information about your specific situation. In general what you'll be looking to do is host your content online somewhere and have your application pull the most recent version when it begins.
There are many possible ways you could store your data online XML, JSON, RSS are a few that are pretty common. Which you'd want to use depends on exactly what the data you are sharing is.
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I am very fairly novice to AndroidStudio and want to create a project of my own.
My question is:
Can you update a Database outside of republishing your app?
Say I have published the app and the Database is currently empty. Then later I want to add some data How would I add this data to the DB without having to change fundamental source code, or redevelop the app? I am using SQLite.
I would like to publish this application as a Network app. That is I want all users to view the same information from "empty" Database and whatever is populated. Could you guys give me a direction or a minimally functional example of Network apps / their requirements. I have never used or developed them before.
END_RESULT:
Users should download an app (this app) and be able to be able to collect news added to its feed.
The maintenance crew, should be able to add/populate the app via a database reasonably without having to redeploy the app every time new material is added.
You would have to implement some kind of server backend that your app communicates to in order to download new data. The app must already have logic for how to process that data and store it locally in SQLite, but that can be fairly straightforward. As for how to sync or download new data, there are several possibilities.
Perform a sync when the app starts. You may or may not want to do this if you are using some other (periodic) mechanism.
Schedule periodic syncs with JobScheduler. This is a good practice in that JobScheduler doesn't have to run your task at a specific time, it can run it within a certain time window so that your task coincides with other apps that need to run tasks. Since your task would spin up the radio and make network requests, the system can let other apps that need the radio also run at the same time to reduce the number of radio wakeups (and thus be more battery efficient).
Implement Google Cloud Messaging so that your backend can send a push notification to your app, and your app can receive this as a signal to perform a sync.
Note you aren't limited to only one of these.
Yes you can, if you add Realtime Database.
This is a database hosted on a server instead of directly on the phone, which can push informations to clients to synchronize new data on them.
Otherwise, you need to update the app to get new content.
One wonderful tool to achieve this is Firebase.
https://firebase.google.com/docs/database/
This is a very broad ended question and as such difficult to provide specific answer to. What do you mean by 'updating a database outside of republishing your app' ?
Do you mean update the database schema - YES, it can be done.
Put data into database - Yes, the app owning the database can do it anytime based on it's business logic.Which means the source code to insert the data should already be embedded into your published app. Only thing that should be decided on the fly, is when to execute this code.
Normally for a networked app, it's a norm to refresh the data when the app is launched. This means you can put a network call in your app's main screen launch and download whatever you wanted to download and put it into database. Your maintenance crew can put the data on a server and let the app download it.
Android has a plethora of network libraries and the choice depends on what kind of content you are downloading. Will suggest to try out Volley (Official from Google) and Retrofit (If you want something slicker)
For a simple app that has a list of (for example) stores, how are the CRUD operations implemented? Would a desktop/web manager app be the solution?
For example, the manager has all the CRUD implementations while the mobile app just displays and process search queries.
EDIT:
Lets say I am making an application for android that shows users where the best vegetables can be obtained within a 10 mile radius, such application would only have a list of stores, a search bar and perhaps a simple sistem for more narrow queries (like the organic etc...)
Naturally I'll want to add, edit and delete the record of stores that the app shows, but I don't want to even show a link or option to manage the app on the user interface for security reasons.
I was considering building a basic desktop app that manages the CRUD operations, whereas the mobile one just periodically updates the information to reflect changes if any.
This is my first mobile app so I am not quite sure how this is often deal with.
The answer for this question is very contextual. The answer is, it depends!
Is the data meant to exist only on the application itself? If so, I'd look into sqllite database management.
Is the data meant to be used on a web application aswell? If so I'd look into implementations such as parse (and many others) that will handle the persisting of the data.
Perhaps you have the data on the database already, maybe your next step is building a restful api to interact with said data
I want users to send textual feedback to myself(the developer) directly(without involving Google Play).
Hence, I can get the suggestions to improve my app directly to myself, instead of users writing negative reviews on Google Play.
I do not own a website nor have access to any server.
I do not want to use ACTION_SEND, as that opens an email app.
I'm an android beginner and this is my first app.
Maybe that data can be stored in a database(on cloud, common to all users) that I can access at any time I want?
After researching, I think GCM is supposed to be used, but I no idea how to go about it.
Please tell me the easiest way to implement this.
Thank You.
That is not what exactly what GCM is for. GCM is primarily for sending data from the cloud to the the devices.
You are correct in thinking that one option is to store the data in a database in the cloud. You could use http://pythonanywhere.com free account and build a web app that provides you endpoints which will save and retrieve data to a SQLite db pretty easily (if you have knowledge of python and server side web concepts).
Another perhaps simpler option is to use a pre-existing cloud database solution http://www.parse.com is a cloud backend that also has a free-to-use option that you can use to store arbitrary data. It is pretty easy to get up and running if you follow their many nice Android tutorials.
One last option I will present is to use a Google Spreadsheet with a Form associated to it. Once you create a form if you know the right url and parameters you can send a post request to insert arbitrary data into your spreadsheet. I've created a library that simplifies the process of uploading. GoogleFormUploader. If you need help getting your form set up you can watch the relevant portion of my video tutorial covering this topic
I am writing a basic app that interacts with a webservice I'm writing using AppEngine. I was wondering what the repercussions are of using login based authentication and managing users individually on the server side.
I know the business benefits of knowing your users and since I plan to eventually have some user generated content in the service, I realize I will eventually have to add it.
Right now, I'm concerned more about the technical aspects of adding this feature. What are the development and maintenance costs of adding these services right now versus adding them at a later point in time i.e. when the datastore is already populated with some 'anonymous' data and not user histories are kept ?
I know this is a vague question so I'll try to quantize the situation. Let's say we have an app that allows users to search the surrounding area for restaurants. The app only needs to send to the service the type of restaurant, say 'Chinese' ? The app is popular and gets a 100k users. Now we want to add a favorites system. Would we have been better off adding it from the start or is it better to wait to get some user and then add features ?
An underlying concept here is also the value that users attribute to a personalized experience and it would be great to get some insights from experienced App developers.
It seems feasible to build your system from the ground up using an internal unique identifier to segment user data. To start, just use the device's unique identifier to authenticate, then add a login-based scheme later.
I recently rolled my own api-based authentication system using GAE, and one of my biggest regrets has been not biting the bullet and doing it sooner. That said, if the context warrants (ie you want to test out a concept and see how well it resonates), I'd say you are safe going with an extendable approach, like the one I've described.
I'm looking for suggestions for ways to share Android app data between phones running the same app. For example, lets say I have an app that stores a database of book reviews. If person A has a book review that person B doesn't have, what are the options for getting that information from person A's phone to person B's phone?
Currently, I'm aware of the following options:
- Upload data from person A's phone to a server, then download data from server to Person B's phone.
- Write code to have the phones sync up using bluetooth
- Write code to send SMS messages
I'm wondering if there are any more options besides these, and if there's actually a best-practice for accomplishing this?
Ideally, I want the users to simply click a button in the app to make the sharing take place, so I don't want to go down the bluetooth route because that requires the user to do a bit of setup (or assumes they already have set things up in the form of bluetooth settings).
Since the data can be of variable length and potentially large, I believe that would rule out text messaging.
As far as the server route goes, from what I understand this seems to be an ok way of doing things, but my problem is that I have no experience with having users potentially sign in to a server and then uploading data. I don't know of the cost concerns (if any), or of potential security concerns (allowing just anyone to upload data, I'm not sure if I would have to take steps to ensure someone couldn't bypass the app and upload malicious data).
So, can you guys give me suggestions and point me in the right direction? Thanks.
I'm wondering if there are any more options besides these
You could try generating a QR code and scanning it on the other phone. Beyond that, I think you have it mostly covered.
and if there's actually a best-practice for accomplishing this?
That is impossible to answer in the abstract.
Keep the database server side and interface with it via a web service
I too am looking for a solution to this very problem. I'll throw it out there that a fourth, or rather extension of your first option, is to use the Cloud to Device Messaging Framework, though it still requires (as best I can tell) having your own server, though I suppose you wouldn't need to store the database server-side longer than it takes to send the message, provided you keep it under 1024b (or whatever the actual size is).
I don't believe there is a convenient way to monitor/send email in the background. If I could have my app monitor email messages looking for a key subject, then parsing the body, I could probably accomplish what I'm looking for using email as the transport.
The problem with maintaining a server, is that you probably would need to build in a subscription fee to your app to cover the costs of maintaining a server, as one time sales may not be able to cover the ongoing expense.