Developer FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions
About Mobile Application Management and related things

What’s different about developing apps for enterprise vs. consumers?
While the fundamentals of building a great consumer app—simple, easy to use and relevant to the users— are transferable to enterprise apps, there are several difference you must consider when developing apps for internal use within a company including:

  • Distribution:  iTunes and Android Market are public. Your enterprise apps are not.
  • Version Management: Enterprises need complete control over when and how their app updates are distributed.
  • Pricing and Licensing: Enterprises require more sophisticated licensing models than public app stores provide.
  • Security: Enterprises demand security including encryption, and the ability to remotely lock, wipe, and disable.
  • Reporting: Companies want to understand how their mobile apps are being used and to measure productivity of their employees.

What are best practices for building an enterprise-ready app?
If you are familiar with building apps for consumers, a lot of the best practices are very similar. For example, apps built for an enterprise (as with any app) needs to be simple to use and relevant to the end user.

However, enterprises are much more concerned than consumers with many of the factors listed above – access control, manageability, security, and reporting.
From an access control standpoint, enterprises not only want to be able to limit access to the app to only those within their business, but often have more granular requirements such as being able to limit access to only a specific business unit or department within that business unit.

For manageability, it’s important to be able to easily roll out and distribute the apps to the end-user, including the initial app as well as any of the multiple updates that will need to be rolled out within a given year.

On the security side, enterprises are concerned with making sure that corporate data is not accessed or available to unauthorized users.  Key features should be built into the app, such as ability to lock, wipe, remove the app when a device is lost or an employee leaves the company, compliance with corporate security policies, and encryption of data stored on the device or transmitted over the air.

Enterprises will also demand greater reporting, understanding who has access to the app, who has used it, and when, and the ability to monitor and control usage for security and license management purposes.

How often should I expect to update my apps?
We have often seen developers updating apps 4-6 times per year (sometimes more).  While it may be more, some of the drivers of the number of updates are expiration of enterprise certificates (which happen once a year), OS updates, bug fixes and the addition of new features.  Each time this happens you’ll need a solution to distribute and manage updates.

How do I distribute my custom enterprise app to employees of my customers without going through iTunes or Android Market, or other public marketplace?
AppCentral’s Enterprise Storefront offers the solution to distribute private internal apps to employees of the company you are developing apps.

For iOS apps, developers need to follow Apple’s Enterprise Developer Program guidelines.  Another great resource is Distributing Enterprise Apps for iOS 4 Devices.

I only have one app to distribute to a customer — do you have a solution for that?
Yes, AppCentral offers the Developer Deployment Solution (DDS) to help developers deploy a single app.  In addition to providing functionality for distributing an app, DDS allows provide developers with up to 4 updates over 12 months.

What are best practices for testing an app with end-users and my customers?
AppCentral is the perfect solution for testing your app with end users.  Developers can apply for an AppCentral to deploy or test apps to up to 20 users.  This is perfect for testing your apps with selected end users.<link to Apply page>

I need to do a pilot rollout to a limited number of users.  Can AppCentral help with that?
Yes.  AppCentral offer several solutions to help you deploy your apps. AppCentral’s Developer Deployment Solution (DDS) offers single app deployment solution to get your apps to employees. AppCentral Enterprise Storefront provides role and organization based entitlement options that helps you control who can access and install apps within the organization.  If you are looking to test an app with a limited group of people, apply today for the free trial to deploy apps to up to 20 users.

How do I become an AppCentral reseller?
AppCentral is always looking for new resellers who can offer the AppCentral Enterprise Storefront and the mGuard product to an enterprise. To get started, register today as an AppCentral Developer and indicate your interest in becoming a reseller.  A representative of AppCentral will contact you to better understand your business objectives.

How can I aggregate feedback and understand the adoption of my applications within enterprises?
AppCentral provides a rating review engine that gives the mobile workforce a voice.  In addition, your clients can track who is using your applications.  For developers & IT administrators, the ratings provide directional information about the relevance of apps.

Cross-Platform Development

How do HTML5 applications (pros and cons) differ from Native applications?

  • Native App – Advantages – Access graphics rendering on device directly for better performance for graphics-heavy apps, allow access to on-device utilities such as camera, address book, GPS.  Disadvantages – requires development in the native language, and has to be rewritten for each platform supported.
  • HTML5 (Web-App) – Advantages:  based on standard language (HTML, CSS, Javascript) that are supported cross-platform.  Write once run on any device.  Installed and accessed by user similarly to native app.  Disadvantages:  cannot access native device hardware features such as camera, accelerometer, GPS, address book.  Graphics rendering may not perform as well.
  • Hybrid App – Advantages: leverages common web technologies (HTML, CSS, Javascript) much like HTML5, but get experience of native app.   Much of the user interface is written in HTML5, which can be run across platforms.  They are then embedded in native component to allow access to device utilities that cannot be accessed via HTML5.  Some popular frameworks that help enable this include AppCelerator’s Titanium, AppMobi, and PhoneGap.

How do I build mobile applications for Multiple OS’s?
Device fragmentation (as defined as the “inability to write once and run anywhere”) is a long-standing issue, especially in the world of mobile. While today’s environment is much less complex than the days of JavaME, there are still lots of questions about the most efficient way to build cross platform apps. Emerging web technologies like HTML5 and CSS3 are powerful cross-platform tools.

There are plenty of well-made mobile apps out there that are HTML5 apps. This can be a great approach with data driven applications, and as graphics evolve in HTML5 this web apps will become even more powerful over time.

Outside of creating web applications directly, many tools exist that follow the strategy of leveraging web technologies for cross platform application development of native apps. Some are compiling code from your web code to create native code, and others have build their interface in web technologies on top of a native wrapper/shim that exposes native functionality.  Here are some of the leaders in this area:

While this article is older and focused at the JavaME environment, it is a good high-level overview of the problem as well as the possible solution types: Fragmentation of Mobile by Damith C. Rajapakse, a lecturer at National University of Singapore, School of Computing.

IOS Development

What is an enterprise certificate and how is it important?
An enterprise certificate is very important if you are planning on distributing apps to your employees outside of the iTunes store.  Apple requires developers to be a part of the Apple’s Enterprise Developer Program in order to deploy mobile iOS apps outside of the iTunes Store.  As an Apple Enterprise Developer, you will be given an enterprise certificate that needs to be included in your app.  You may also want to check out Distributing Enterprise App for iOS 4 Devices

What the requirements to get an iOS enterprise certificate?
Check out Apple’s iOS Developer Enterprise Program for details about requirements for getting an iOS enterprise certificate.

What are the iOS Native Application Distribution Options?
Enterprise Distribution is a method that allows companies to distribute custom apps within their company.  AppCentral’s Enterprise Storefront solution allows you to deploy apps to employees of a company. In order to distribute iOS app internally to employees, Apple requires you to be a member of the iOS Enterprise Developer Program.

Developer Distribution: is the option for “off the shelf applications”. It both allows and requires you to distribute your apps through the Apple AppStore. To distribute through the AppStore you must be enrolled in the iOS Developer program and submit your app to Apple for review and approval.

Ad-Hoc Distribution: This option is built for testing. It allows you to distribute to 100 devices delineated by their UDIDs. Both participants of the iOS Developer program as well as the iOS Enterprise Developer program can use Ad-Hoc Distribution.

For more information about distributing iOS applications, check out Apple’s Distributing Applications.

What are the current limitations with Apple Enterprise Distribution?

When developing enterprise applications on the iOS platform, Apple requires developers to be a part of their iOS Developer Program and have an Apple Enterprise Agreement to deploy applications.

In order to deploy apps outside the iTunes Store, Apple requires the company (or developer) deploying the application to wrap their Apple Enterprise certificate into the app code.

Below outlines Apples rules around distribute of apps to employees and contractors:

Internal Use Applications developed under [the Apple Enterprise Agreement] may be deployed on Deployment Devices in two ways: (1) deployment for internal use by Employees, and (2) deployment for use by Customers either on Your physical premises or under the direct supervision and physical control of Your Employees in other locations, subject to Apple’s right to review and approve such deployment as set forth herein

Are there additional tools to help developers understand the iOS platform?
Apple offers another great resource to help developers with building apps. The iOS Human Interface Guidelines and the iOS Application Programming Guide are regularly used by the AppCentral a reference point as we work on the iOS platform.

Can I move my developer identity?
Yes.  Check out iOS Development Guidelines: Managing Devices & Digital Identities for details of how you can transfer developer identities.

Why does my Apple iOS app not install?
Without seeing how you built the app, it is hard to troubleshoot specific problems.  A couple of suggestions:

How do I debug why my iOS build is failing?
The best way to identify bugs is tether your device to your computer. Use either XCode or the iPCU’s console to see what the errors are. It is also recommended you try installing the app via tether before OTA to see if this works. For more information, checkout iOS Development Guide: Debugging Applications and iOS Technical Note TN2151: Understanding & Analyzing iPhone OS Application Crash Reports.

Android Development

Which Android OS should I target my application to?
It depends on the target you are trying to reach with you app.  Often your enterprise customer may have specific versions they wish to support, especially if they’ve rolled out Android tablets or phones internally. Android publishes the Distribution of Android Users by Version to help you identify the appropriate version for your app.

Are there any limitations on non-Android Market distribution?
Yes. Carriers such as AT&T block non-Android Market distribution on certain devices.

Are there devices without Android Market?
Yes. Android Market is generally licensed to Carriers. Devices such as Cisco Cius do not have access Android Market and require apps to be purchased at their AppHQ

Apply for the Trial

A trial version of AppCentral’s Enterprise App Store is available for qualified developers to easily test apps in a production environment with up to 20 users.

Apply for the Trial