A Fresh Graduate’s Guide to Software Development Tools and Technologies

Chapter

9 Mobile Platform

CHAPTER AUTHORS
Gopalakrishnan Kadambari
Koh Zi Han
Sneha Girish Tilak
Vu Viet Quynh Huong
Software Development Tools and Technologies

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CONTENTS
1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................................................. 5
2 Core Concepts ........................................................................................................................................................... 5
2.1 Platforms and operating systems ........................................................................................................... 5
2.2 Application frameworks and applications .......................................................................................... 6
3 Mobile application development ...................................................................................................................... 6
3.1 Choose your platform .................................................................................................................................. 6
3.2 Know your application framework........................................................................................................ 9
3.3 Know your device....................................................................................................................................... 11
3.4 Explore available tools ............................................................................................................................. 11
3.5 Support during development ................................................................................................................ 11
3.6 Publish your application ......................................................................................................................... 12
3.7 Monetize on your application ............................................................................................................... 13
4 From desktop development to mobile development ............................................................................ 14
4.1 Interaction paradigm ................................................................................................................................ 14
4.2 Resource constraints ................................................................................................................................ 14
4.3 Resource opportunities ........................................................................................................................... 16
5 Looking ahead….................................................................................................................................................... 18
5.1 Superphones................................................................................................................................................. 18
5.2 Detecting the pressure ............................................................................................................................. 18
6 Summary ................................................................................................................................................................. 19
7 Bibliography........................................................................................................................................................... 20
Appendix ........................................................................................................................................................................... 21

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1 INTRODUCTION
“Mobile is the future”
- Eric Schmidt (Ex-CEO, Google)
Mobiles are rapidly becoming an integral part of people’s lives. Gartner expects the mobile
applications industry to increase to a massive 21.6 billion sales figure by 2013 generating
revenue of 29.5 billion dollars(Gartner Newsroom 2010). Therefore, as developers, we can look
at this phenomenon as an opportunity to develop software that has a potential of reaching a
vast audience.
Also, for individual mobile developers, this industry could offer very lucrative benefits. Even
today, the possibility of making profits is huge. Success stories of developers, both novice and
expert, becoming instant millionaires after creating hit application(s) are plenty. The job
opportunities for mobile developers are very good too. According to ACM career news, there is
a high demand for mobile application developers but not enough skilled people are
available(ACM CareerNews 2010). Hence, if, as a developer, your resume boasts mobile
development knowledge, you have an advantage over those who don’t. This knowledge will be
useful even if you do not want to focus your career just on mobile application development.
More and more businesses are entering the mobile application industry and introducing mobile
applications for their users (at&t Media Newsroom 2011); hence you can use this knowledge in
almost any field you enter.
Thus, this chapter aims to be a starting point for the readers into the world of mobile
application development by giving an introduction and basic overview of different aspects of
mobile platforms and applications.
The chapter has been organized as follows:
Firstly, we will cover some basic concepts important to mobile development. Then, we will give
a step-by-step guide of developing applications, from designing to publishing. Simultaneously,
we will introduce and explain the related concepts. Later, we cover the differences between
desktop development and mobile development - mainly the constraints and opportunities
mobile development has. To conclude, we look at what the future of mobile holds and then give
a summary of the concepts covered in the chapter.

2 CORE CONCEPTS
Before we can delve into mobile application development, let’s look at some of the core concepts.

2.1 Platforms and operating systems

To be able to develop mobile applications, we need to first understand the underlying principles
of mobile platforms and how they are related to mobile applications. Mobile platforms are
basically those that allow software and services to be run on devices (Fling 2009). Examples of
mobile platforms include Palm, BlackBerry, iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile.
Mobile operating systems provide tools that allow application to share data and services.
Examples of mobiles OS includes Palm OS, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Mac OS X and Android.
(Note: For simplicity, ‘mobile platforms’ and ‘mobile operating system’ will be used
interchangeably in the rest of this chapter).
For this chapter, we will be focusing on three platforms:

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Android,

iOS and

Windows Phone 7.

2.2 Application frameworks and applications

Mobile application frameworks are set of class libraries that provide developers an interface to
build applications. Examples of application frameworks include Java ME, Cocoa Touch, Android
SDK and WebKit.
Applications are built using application frameworks on the given platform. The next section
covers steps the developers needs to take while developing mobile applications.

3 MOBILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

In this section we will look at all the steps you need to consider in designing, developing,
publishing and maintaining your application. The major concepts and ideas are explained as and
when they are introduced.

3.1 Choose your platform

The very first step in mobile application development is to decide on which platform to build
the application for. This may depend on the number of factors including the below:
1. Target users: The BlackBerry platform is known to be dominant in the enterprise
market and continues to do so - though other platforms are gradually gaining market
share (Gohring 2010) . Therefore, if your application is targeted at enterprise users,
BlackBerry may be your best choice, for now. Whereas, if your application is to be used
by the mass market, you can decide to develop your application for platforms such as
Android and iOS.
2. Market share: Analyze the current and the predicted market share to determine which
platform will have the highest market share in the current and the coming years. Refer
to 0 Appendix, point 1 for Gartner’s forecast for various platforms’ market share.
3. Features: Each platform has some unique features which you can leverage upon in your
application. Consider these when designing your applications to best optimize your
application.

Let’s take a look at our chosen platforms:

Basic info: Android was founded by Android Inc. in October, 2003 and later
purchased by Google Inc. in August, 2005.

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Ch9: Mobile Platform

Below is the basic architecture of Android: Invalid source specified.

Linux Kernel: The Linux Kernel handles core system services and acts as a hardware
abstraction layer (HAL) between the physical hardware of the device and the Android SDK.
Some of the major functionalities include low level memory management, process management,
networking and other OS related services.
Native Libraries: The Android native libraries are all shared libraries written in C or C++,
compiled for the particular hardware architecture used by the phone. Some of the important
libraries include OpenGL for 2D and 3D graphics, SQLite database and the WebKit library for
browsing HTML content.
Android Runtime: This includes the Dalvik Virtual Machine (DVM) and the core java libraries.
Based on java VM, the Dalvik design has been optimized for the low memory requirements of
mobile devices. It allows multiple VMs to run concurrently.
Application Framework: This layer provides the high-level building blocks with which
applications are created. The important classes are Activity manager that controls the life cycle
of the applications, Location manager that provide location sensing options and Resource
manager.
Applications: The highest layer in the Android architecture is the applications themselves. This
consists of applications and widgets. Widgets are gadgets that operate only on a small area of
the Home screen.
Unique features:
1. Open: The Android platform is provided through open source licensing. Developers have
unprecedented access to the handset features when developing applications.
2. Free: Android applications are free to develop. It uses familiar and inexpensive
development tools and the software development kit (SDK) is also freely available for
download. It requires only a registration charge for publishing your applications for the
first time. Consequent updates to the application are free of charge.

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Basic info: iOS (formerly known as iPhone OS) was released on June, 2007 by Apple Inc.

Below is the basic architecture of iOS:

The kernel in iOS is based on the same variant of the Mach kernel in Mac OS X. On top of this
kernel are layers of services that are used to implement applications on the platform. These
layers include the Core OS, Core Services, Media services, and the Cocoa Touch layer. Layering
as such gives application developers different degrees of control. The intention is for developers
to use the higher-level frameworks for general development, as they free developers of the
burden of implementing standard system behaviors. Where this is insufficient, the lower-level
frameworks give developers more control.
Core OS, Core Services: These provide fundamental low-level services like file I/O and network
sockets.
Media: This layer provides services used to support 2D and 3D drawing, as well as audio and
video.
Cocoa Touch: This layer provides the fundamental infrastructure used by applications. Besides
providing object-oriented programming support for collections, file management and network
operations, this layer also provides access to the device user’s profile information,
accelerometer, and other hardware features.

Basic info: Windows Phone 7 was launched in February, 2010 by Windows Inc. it is
Microsoft’s first mobile operating platform to focus on the consumer market instead
of the enterprise market
The architecture details of Window Phone 7 have not been released for the public by
Microsoft yet.
Unique features:
One significant distinguishing component of Windows Phone 7 is in the UI, dubbed the Metro UI
utilizing the Metro Design Language by Microsoft. The Metro UI utilizes simple, clean and
modern as its design language, and revolves around having easily accessible and glance-able
information.
Two concepts that Metro uses to achieve these goals are live tiles and hubs. Any application can
be pinned to “Start” as a live tile, and applications can choose to animate or update the live tiles
with key information pertaining to the app (e.g. the number of unread e-mails for an E-mail app).
This allows the user to see at a glance at all times if there are items that are in need of his
attention. The second are Hubs, of which functions of a similar nature are grouped together. The
People hub for example, not only acts as an address book across the user’s phone, mail,
exchange server accounts, but also integrates with Facebook and shows Facebook statuses and
updates for the users’ contacts. Likewise, Pictures hub do not just contain pictures and videos

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that the user has taken on his phone, but also surfaces photos shared by the users’ friends on
Facebook.
This approach taken by Metro differs greatly from the other two platforms, for instead of taking
an app-centric approach where the phone is just a gateway to applications, Metro focuses more
on the user experience and in making it easy for information that the user cares about to surface
up and be easily accessible.

3.2 Know your application framework

Having chosen your platform, the next step is to familiarize yourself with the application
framework. Mobile application frameworks are set of class libraries that provide developers an
interface to build applications. Examples of application frameworks include Java ME, Cocoa
Touch, Android SDK and WebKit.
Android applications are written in Java programming language using the Android
libraries provided by the SDK. Developers can also build software components in C
and C++ using the Android Native Development Kit (NDK) but it is not intended as a
full alternative to the java development model.

Android being an open platform, developers have access to the same application framework as
the core phone applications. The main components of the framework are Invalid source
specified.:
1. Views – basic building block for UI components like layouts and menus.
2. Content Providers – enables sharing data between applications such as access to the
user contacts.
3. Resource Manager
4. Notification Manager – enables applications to display alerts in the status bar.
5. Activity Manager – manages the activity lifecycle (Refer to 0, 2)

Apple delivers most of its system interfaces in special packages called frameworks.
A framework is a directory that contains a dynamic shared library and the
resources (such as header files, images, helper applications, and so on) needed to
support that library (iOS Technology Overview n.d.).

The frameworks have been arranged similar to the layer in the architecture of iOS.
1. Core OS Layer:
a) Accelerate Framework: Provides interface for performing mathematic
calculations.
b) External Accessory Framework: This framework is used to communicate with
any hardware accessories attached to an iOS-device.
c) Security Framework: Provides support for adding security features like
managing certificate, keys, trust policies and so on.
2. Core Services Layer

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Some of the frameworks under this layer include:

a) Address Book Framework: Provides support for accessing contacts’ information on
the user’s contact database.
b) CFNetwork Framework: Set of C-based interfaces that provide support for working
with network protocols.
c) Core Data Framework: Manages applications that use the Model-View-Controller
application.
d) Core Foundation Framework: Set of C-based interfaces that provides basic data
management and service features for applications like date/time management,
preferences management and so on.
e) Event Kit Framework: Provides an interface to access calendar events on a user’s
device.
3. Media Layer
Some of the frameworks under this layer include:
a) Assets Library Framework: Supports retrieving photos and videos from the
user’s device.
b) AV Foundation Framework: Provides classes for playing audio content.
c) OpenGL ES Framework: Provides interface for drawing 2D and 3D content.
4. Cocoa Touch Framework
Some of the frameworks under this layer include:
a) Address Book UI Framework: Provides interface for creating new contacts and
editing current contacts.
b) Event Kit UI Framework: Provides interface for viewing and editing calendar-
related data.
c) iAd Framework: Lets the developer add advertisements to the applications
d) Map Kit Framework: Provides an interface to add a scrollable map to the existing
view.
e) UIKit Framework: Supports accessing some device specific features like
accelerometer data, camera, battery life information and so on

This platform provides two frameworks: Invalid source specified.

The Silverlight framework: For event-driven, XAML-based application development
that allows developers to develop creative mark-up based user experiences.
The XNA framework: for loop-based games that enables immersive and fun gaming and
entertainment experiences.

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3.3 Know your device

Knowing the specifications of the device you will be developing the application for, is extremely
essential. The device will be the point of interaction between the users and your application and
hence incorporating these specifications in your application will allow you to provide a better
user experience. Things to keep in mind include features like screen dimensions, position and
orientation of buttons, processing power, graphics capabilities, multi-touch capabilities and so
on.

3.4 Explore available tools

Explore the tools at hand and determine which will best help you in developing the applications.
For mobile applications, emulators can be used to simulate mobile conditions on desktops to do
some preliminary testing.

The most popular and familiar IDE is Eclipse which provides full support for Android
Applications through the Android Development Tools (ADT) plug-in. Android
applications can also be developed from the command-line or a simple text editor
with the appropriate tools installed. There are third party tools also available like the
IntelliJ IDEA which ensures support for the latest Android SDK and provides
additional features like quick navigation between code and resources, graphical debugger and
unit testing support.

Below are the tools available for developing applications for iPhone.
Xcode: Complete development environment provides project management, a
powerful source editor, and a graphical debugger.
iOS Simulator: Run, test, and debug your application locally on your Mac using a
simulated iPhone and iPad.
Instruments: Collect, display, and compare performance data graphically in real-time to
optimize your application.
Interface Builder: Interface Builder makes designing a user interface as easy as drag and drop.

All tools for Windows Phone 7 development are provided as a complete

downloadable package from the Getting Started page on App Hub. The tools include
Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft Expression Blend 4.0, XNA Game Studio 4.0, Windows
Phone Emulator, Silverlight and .NET Framework 4. If you already have a copy of
these software, the installer will just install the SDK and Windows Phone development support
on top of your existing software. If not, a free, express edition of the tools will be installed
instead.

3.5 Support during development

You can use various resources to help you with any problems or doubts encountered during
development. Platforms have official forums where developers can help each others with any
development issue. You can also make use of IRC channels which provide an easy and quick way
to finding solutions.

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http://developer.android.com/resources/community-groups.html
The above link is the official page of resources for the Android developers. It has links to various
discussion forums and mailing lists.
IRC: Provides two channels.
1. #android on irc.freenode.net which is for any general discussion on the Android platform.
2. #android-dev on irc.freenode.net which is for discussions specific to developing
applications on the Android platform.

Apple Developer Forums: Post iOS SDK development topics and questions for an
open discussion with other iOS developers and Apple engineers.
Getting started videos and documents: Cover a range of topics, from tools and
frameworks to development best-practices and design methods.
iOS Reference Library: A rich collection of documentation, guides, and articles categorized so
you can quickly find the information you’re looking for.
IRC: There is currently one widely used channel for iOS developers
1. #iphonedev on irc.freenode.net

http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/default.aspx?GroupID=19
The above link is the official page of resources for the Window Phone developers.
IRC: There is currently no dedicated channel for Window Phone 7 development.

3.6 Publish your application

After your application is developed and tested, it needs to be published in the application stores.
Application stores are a single point of contact for downloading applications and
updates.(Online App Store definition n.d.). Developers add their applications, updates and price
whereas users download and add reviews for the applications on the application stores.
To successfully publish your applications on the application stores, you need to follow the rules
and regulations set by the respective platforms. For some platforms like iOS and Windows
Phone 7, your application needs to get approved before you can be publish it in the marketplace.

Android Market: Developers need to follow a number of steps before they can
publish their applications on the android market. The first step is digitally signing
the application with a certificate using a private key held by the
application developer. After signing the applications, the next step
in deployment is publishing the application. Android applications
can be distributed to end users in any way including through the Developer’s
web server. Android Market is a service provided by Google for users to find
and download Android applications to their devices and for developers to
distribute their applications for end users all around the world. To publish an
application on the Android Market developer’s need to first register and agree
to the terms and conditions specified. A registration fee of 25$ is required for the first time to
create an account. Subsequently publishing updates and creating a license are free of charge.

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App Store: Apple's App Store is the first smartphone application store.
As of January 2011, it had 350,000+ available applications and reached
10B downloads. In March 2011, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that
Apple had paid a total of US$2B to its app developers (supposedly 70% of apps
revenue).
Apple's App Store is famous for their tight control over submitted applications. Each application
submitted will be reviewed by Apple employees before it gets approved. In order to pass this
code review process, the application needs to show that (1) it works as advertised; (2) it does
not crash the iDevice and (3) it does not use private APIs.
In order to publish apps to the AppStore, developers need to enroll into iOS Developers
Program and pay an annual fee of $99 (for individual membership). The application needs to go
through complex code signing process before it is ready for release. Once it is ready, you can
submit the app to Apple with basic information including Name, Category, Summary and
Screenshots. After that all you can do is to wait. The review process often takes weeks to finish.

To deploy applications onto actual Windows Phone devices, the phone has to first be
unlocked as a developer phone. This can be done via the Windows Phone Developer
Registration tool that is installed with the SDK, though a developer has to first be
formally registered with Microsoft as a member of App Hub. Membership for App Hub comes
with an annual subscription of $99.00 USD, though students can have the fee waived through
the Dreamspark program

3.7 Monetize on your application

Having developed your application, you need to think of pricing strategies to monetize on your
application. You can look at similar applications already present in the market and any
prevalent market trends to determine how and where you want to position your application in
the market.
Below are factors you need to consider:
Free vs. Paid
Decide whether you want to make your application available for fee or impose some price. You
can combine this aspect with the next two aspects to explore more monetization options.
If you plan on pricing on your application, experiment with the amount and the number of users
downloading your application and aim to get the right price-user ratio.
In-app purchases
In-app purchases, as the name suggests, allow users to buy extra features from within your
application. For e.g. you can offer a free level in a game application, or provide extra tools in a
photo-editing application.
You can use this in pricing your application. For eg, you can distribute your application at no
cost, and then earn money by having some priced in-app features.
While Android and iOS both support in-app purchases, Windows Phone 7 has not enabled this
feature yet.
Advertising

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This feature allows you to add advertisement to your applications. Most platforms have their
own official ad networks through which you add the advertisements. You can only use third-
party network that perform the same function.

Official: AdMob; Third-party: Flurry, GreyStripe

Official: iAd; Third-party: AdMob, Super Rewards

Official: Microsoft Advertising pubCenter; Third-party: AdMob, AdDuplex

Some official ad-networks make adding advertisements to your applications as easy as drag-
and-drop.

4 FROM DESKTOP DEVELOPMENT TO MOBILE DEVELOPMENT

As a desktop application developer, you need to be aware of the subtle and not-so-subtle
differences between mobile application development and desktop application development.
This section aims to explore these differences – the way users interact with your application, the
environment in which they do so and the constraints and opportunities that mobiles’ resources
bring about.

4.1 Interaction paradigm

To build applications that will ultimately be consumed by users, we as developers need to

understand the environment that the user will be using the applications in. While desktop users
are usually in a static environment – either at home, office, college and so on, mobile users are
on the go – using applications in transit, train rides, walking, and so on. Hence mobile users will
have many factors vying for their attention while using your application. Therefore, the
application needs to be easier to use, simple and allowing the user to use it even with divided
attention.

4.2 Resource constraints

Mobiles bring about some constraints when compared to desktops and this needs to be
considered when developing applications. Below are some of those constraints:
Runtime Memory
For desktops generally, each process may take around 50 – 200 MB whereas for mobile this
available runtime memory is very less. For e.g. Nexus S has a 512MB RAM, but it enforces a 32
MB cap on the amount of memory an application can use.
Below are the limits for our chosen platforms,
Android enforces a hard limit of 16 to 32MB on application, depending on the devices.

The limit for iOS is not officially released to the public yet, but a safe range for your
application n will be from 15 to 20 MB

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Window Phone 7 sets the limit at 90MB for devices with less than 256MB of memory. No
limits for devices with better memory.
It is important to follow the memory limits, failing which the OS will terminate your application.
You can query the memory limits before running your applications or handle any warnings the
OS may issue if your application is nearing the memory limit. You can take some measure to
make sure you do not overshoot the limits.
1. Avoid memory leaks: Nullify all the references that are not needed any more, and the
garbage collectors will reclaim this memory. For iOS, there are no garbage collectors
hence your manually need to take care of memory allocations.
2. Load lazily: When handling large amounts of data, load only a chunk of data that is
currently needed by the user.
3. Optimize resources: Focus on using the compressed format instead of the raw data
format. For e.g., use binary instead of xml and ‘.png’ instead of ‘.jpeg’.

Storage
Mobiles have a very limited storage space as compared to desktops. For e.g., Samsung Focus has
an 8GB ROM but this is still much smaller than the storage space on desktops.
You can take some steps to increase or save storage space.
1. Use external storage: The storage space can be extended by using external storage like
SD cards. Currently, iOS does not cater to external storage.
2. Allow users to control their data: Due to a lack of proper file explorers, allow users to
delete, backup and restore data hence giving them more control on which data they
want to use currently.

Battery
As mentioned in the interaction paradigms, desktop users are in a static environment and
mostly have easy access to electricity as opposed to mobile users who are mostly on the go and
need their batteries to last for a much larger period of time. Battery life will be affected by the
usage of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, sensors like accelerometers and magnetometers, the mobile’s
backlight and so on. Hence you can take the following measures to ensure that your application
does not drastically reduce the mobile’s battery.
1. Avoid accessing hardware: Access resources only as and when required. For e.g., write
only the updated version to a file, update user locations not more frequently than
required and so on.
2. Use dark background: Use a darker background as far as your application design allows
it because screen illumination drains the battery. Hence, a brighter screen will reduce
battery life faster than a darker screen.
3. Use push: Try to use the push model as opposed to the pull model.
Push model: The network access is performed only when required.

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Pull model: The mobile will keep querying to check for any updates and hence make
many redundant and unnecessary network accesses.
Screen Size
Mobile users are operating on a much smaller screen than desktop users. Some ways you can
make it easier for the users to use your application are:
1. Use bigger font: Owing to the smaller screen size and the distracting environment, you a
font that can make the information easily visible to the user.
2. Make the right thing visible: As the screen size is very limited, make only the important
and currently required things visible on the screen. For e.g., functionalities used less
frequently can be hidden behind a single button and accessible only when the user
specifically asks for that information.

Input Device
Desktops generally have separate input (keyboard and mouse) and output (screen) devices,
whereas for mobiles the screen acts as both the input and output device and keyboards, if
present, are much tinier than the desktop keyboards. To make it easier for users to use your
application, you can make use of the following tips:
1. Use gestures: Do not just rely on the keyboard to get input. You can also use different
gestures and sensor to take the inputs. This will be explored deeper in the next section.
2. Have good fault-tolerance: Working on a smaller screen increases the chances of users
pressing something unintentionally. Therefore, always make sure that the users mean to
perform the pressed actions. For e.g., have warning or re-confirming messages for
critical actions like move and delete. For touchable inputs, keep reasonable space
between screen buttons to allow for the finger size.

4.3 Resource opportunities

Mobiles have features that allow users to interact with the device in more ways than those in a
desktop do and hence provide many opportunities for developing applications that may not
have been possible on a desktop. This section explores such features and the advantages they
bring about from the developer’s point of view.
Touch
Touch is a feature that is not yet common in a desktop computer or laptop. Touch allows the
users to directly interact with the mobile with no need of any additional devices such as a
mouse or a keyboard. As opposed to using a mouse which is a learned skill, touch is very
intuitive and hence allows mobile usage without much hassle. Another point is that, a mouse
provides just one point of contact with the screen whereas touch incorporates multi-touch
which allows interaction over a much larger area.
1. Single-touch
Single-touch includes gestures such as tap, double tap, slide, scroll etc. Platforms provide
API support for these single-touch interactions.
2. Multi-touch

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Multi-touch include gestures such pinch, reverse pinch (for zooming in and out of the
screen), rotating and so on. Platforms provide API support for some of the standard
multi-touch gestures and also allow developers to design other multi-touch gestures.

The things that developers need to take care of when handling multi-touch is:
1. Recognizing events of touch.
2. The information about the touch: its position (X/Y co-ordinates), size and pressure.
3. The type of action: to determine the movement i.e. to see if the touch has moved up,
down etc.
4. Manipulating individual touches: Individual touches can be retrieved using identifiers
that are assigned uniquely to each touch.

Based on the above info, developers can define their own gestures and
how the application behaves with them.
Accelerometer
An accelerometer is an in-build sensor in smartphones that is capable of
measuring the tilt and the motion of the phone (Accelerometer - Mobile
terms glossary n.d.). Unlike desktops, accelerometers allow users a no-
touch interaction i.e. navigating the device with touching the input
screen.
How it works
Using this example from Apple, the accelerometer uses XYZ axes to detect the motion of the
phone. Developers can use the changes in these xyz values to know what kind of motion has
occurred.
Usage
Accelerometers are commonly used in the auto-rotation of the mobile view when the
orientation is changed. It is also widely used in racing gaming where the user can navigate the
mobile to control the wheels in the game.
Accelerometers can also be used to design interesting applications. For e.g., there are apps that
undo text when the phone shakes, locks it when it's faced down, scrolls up and down through
the text depending on if it's a tilted forward or backward and so on.
Location-based services
Mobile users are almost always on-the-go so as developers, you get more opportunities to
interact with the user as compared to desktops and using their location can help you to
personalize this interaction with the users.
How it works
As opposed to desktop which uses IP addresses to determine the location, mobile phones can
also obtain the location using information from the GPS and network operators. Though GPS is
the most widely used method, it is not totally accurate. Some ways can be implemented to get
more accurate information about location.
1. Obtain several GPS readings and calculate the average.
2. iPhone uses A-GPS, short for assisted-GPS, which combines location readings from GPS,
Wi-Fi signals and cell towers to give a more accurate reading.

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Camera
Developers also can make use of the in-build camera and combine it with other features like
location or accelerometers to enhance the application experience. For e.g. geo-tagging combines
location-based services and the camera to allow users to tag photos with their location.

5 LOOKING AHEAD…
“Mobile is the future”. So what’s in store for smartphones in the future and hence for your mobile
applications?

5.1 Superphones

(O'Dell 2010)
Coined by Google Inc., superphones are supposed to be smarter and more powerful than
smartphones. Features of superphones include:
1. Allowing developers much deeper access to hardware capabilities, hence allowing
developers more control over their applications and what they can do.
2. Larger screen
3. Camera – between five and right megapixels.
4. Multiple microphones: multiple microphones will allow for better call and recording
quality.
5. Powerful processors: Phones with gigahertz processor. The current best include phones
of 1Ghz processors.

These features and others will allow for better quality applications and their interaction
with the user.

5.2 Detecting the pressure

Imagine if your touch-screen can detect the pressure of your touch and is able to differentiate
between a gentle tap and a hard poke. How it works is that there is an internal switch that can
detect the bend in the touch screen. These readings and the data about the touch can tell you
exactly where and how hard the screen was pressed Invalid source specified.. This, combined
with multi-touch feature can allow you many possible ways of designing your application.
Though not mainstream yet, research is on-going and maybe widely used in the upcoming years.
Technology is constantly changing, and it is best to keep track of those so that you can
incorporate the latest technology in your application.

18
Ch9: Mobile Platform

6 SUMMARY
Platforms: A Comparison

Google Inc. Apple Inc. Microsoft Corp.

Java Objective-C .NET Langauges

Android Market App Store App Hub

$25 registration $99/year to $99/year to

fee publish publish Free for
students through
Dreamspark

Easily deploy on Easily deploy on Easily deploy on

emulator emulator emulator

Easily deploy on Require iOS Must register to

device University unlock phone and
Accounts to deploy deploy on phone
on phone

19
Software Development Tools and Technologies

Desktop to Mobile

In this section we discussed about the differences brought about when switching from desktop
application development to mobile application development.
1. We covered the interaction paradigm explaining how a mobile user is different from a
desktop user.
2. We covered some of the constraints mobile resources bring about such as runtime
memory, storage, battery life, screen size, input devices and showed some tips that could
be implemented to overcome these constraints. We then covered the opportunities
brought about by mobile resources like the touch features, accelerometer, location-
based services and in-build cameras.

7 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Accelerometer - Mobile terms glossary.
http://www.gsmarena.com/glossary.php3?term=accelerometer (accessed 18 March, 2011).
ACM CareerNews. 21 December, 2010.
http://plone.acm.org/membership/careernews/archives/acm-careernews-for-tuesday-
december-21-2010/.
Amit Bahree, Dennis Mulder, Shawn Cicoria, Chris Peiris, Nishith Pathak. Pro WCF: Practical
Microsoft SOA Implementation [Paperback]. Apress, 2007.
at&t Media Newsroom. 15 March, 2011. http://www.att.com/gen/press-
room?pid=19326&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=31689&mapcode=enterprise.
Chappell, David. Introducing Windows Communication Foundation in .NET Framework 4. March,
2010. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ee958158.aspx (accessed 9 March, 2011).
Conder, Shane, and Lauren Darcey. Android wireless Application Development. New Jersy:
Addison-Wesley Professional, 2010.
Corporation, Oracle. The Java EE 5 Tutorial.
http://download.oracle.com/javaee/5/tutorial/doc/bnazq.html (accessed 10 March, 2011).
Creating an iPhone Application.
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#referencelibrary/GettingStarted/Creating_an_iPhone
_App/_index.html (accessed 18 March, 2011).
Eichengreen, Barry. One Economy, Ready or Not: Thomas Friedman's Jaunt Through Globalization.
May/June, 1999. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/55017/barry-eichengreen/one-
economy-ready-or-not-thomas-friedman-s-jaunt-through-globaliz (accessed 6 March, 2011).
Erl, Thomas. SOA Principles of Service Design. Prentice Hall, 2007.
Fling, Brian. Mobile Design and Development. O'Reilly Media Inc. , 2009.
Gartner Newsroom. 18 January, 2010. http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1282413.
Gohring, Nancy. Smartphones in the enterprise: A changing landscape. 18 December, 2010.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9201298/Smartphones_in_the_enterprise_A_
changing_landscape?taxonomyName=Mobile%20and%20Wireless&amp.

20
Ch9: Mobile Platform

Goncalves, Antonio. Beginning Java(TM) EE 6 with GlassFish(TM) 3: From Novice to Professional.

Apress, Inc., 2009.
Hewitt, Eben. Java SOA Cookbook. O’Reilly Media, 2009.
iOS Technology Overview.
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Miscellaneous/Conceptual/iPhoneO
STechOverview/IPhoneOSOverview/IPhoneOSOverview.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP400078
98-CH4-SW6.
Jane Laudon, Kenneth Laudon. Essentials of Management Information Systems. Prentice Hall,
2007.
Judith Hurwitz, Robin Bloor, Carol Baroudi, Marcia Kaufman. Service Oriented Architecture for
Dummies. Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2007.
Kalin, Martin. Java Web Services: Up and Running. O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2009.
Klein, Scott. Professional WCF Programming: .NET Development with the Windows
Communication Foundation. John Wiley & Sons, 2007.
O'Dell, Jolie. What makes a Smartphone a Superphone? 12 July, 2010.
http://mashable.com/2010/07/12/superphone/.
Online App Store definition.
http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=online+app+store&i=62644,00.asp.

APPENDIX
Forecast for mobile platform sales.

Activity Lifecycle Invalid source specified.

21
Software Development Tools and Technologies

Activities in the system are managed as an activity stack. When a new activity is started, it is
placed on the top of the stack and becomes the running activity -- the previous activity always
remains below it in the stack, and will not come to the foreground again until the new activity
exits.
An activity has essentially four states:
 If an activity in the foreground of the screen (at the top of the stack), it
is active or running.
 If an activity has lost focus but is still visible (that is, a new non-full-sized or transparent
activity has focus on top of your activity), it is paused. A paused activity is completely
alive (it maintains all state and member information and remains attached to the
window manager), but can be killed by the system in extreme low memory situations.
 If an activity is completely obscured by another activity, it is stopped. It still retains all
state and member information, however, it is no longer visible to the user so its window
is hidden and it will often be killed by the system when memory is needed elsewhere.
 If an activity is paused or stopped, the system can drop the activity from memory by
either asking it to finish, or simply killing its process. When it is displayed again to the
user, it must be completely restarted and restored to its previous state.

22