I need to be able to have 3 swift apps which can communicate with each other. Think of app 1 as a base app which communicates with a server and stores info in a local DB and app 2 and 3 need to read (and POSSIBLY write) to that DB created in app 1.
Looking on the net, this appears to be possible with 'app groups'.If all 3 apps are under the same app group, will they automatically have a 'shared folder' where I can create and/or store a Realm DB? Would app 2 and 3 use NSFileManager then to interact with this shared file? I can't seem to find any examples of this in action.
You need a central database to read and write to, from multiple client apps, that is an API at its simplest. In other words, you need an API for your Apps. It is possible that you might be thinking this is more challenging than a shared folder and shared Realm DB but that is not the case, you are actually making the problem more complex by trying to reinvent the wheel of how N number mobile apps share data with each other, it is of no matter that N number apps all reside on the same device, in iOS an app is in a Sandbox, and you trying to circumvent that.
My guess is that your approach to this problem is centered on using Realm DB, but Realm DB is probably not the right tool for the job as Realm DB is a LOCAL database serving ONE app, if Realm DB was designed to work with multiple apps it would be an API tool like Firebase or Amazon S3.
You need to create an API and the API just has one database backing it.
Say for example, App1 needs to save a picture that App2 needs to be able to retrieve and view.
Your API will have a method called:
SavePicture(byte[] picture)
Now App1 saves the picture by calling your API and the picture is saved, either in the database or on the server hard drive, either way there is a record in the database for the saved picture.
Now App2 wants new pictures, say there is a refresh button on App2, the refresh button touch calls your API, another method called
[byte[]] GetPictures()
The GetPictures API method returns an Array of byte[], each being an image, that App2 can display.
You might want to checkout Firebase, this seems to be a third party tool that people use that are not familiar with building APIs, or learn how to build an API, using PHP, Ruby on Rails, ASP.NET Web API, Python, etc. with a database that could be MySQL, PostgreSQL, Sql Server, MongoDB, RavenDB, etc.
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I built an in-house app for selling tickets and checking-in students to our High School dances. At the moment the app can scan a QR code with the student's information and add their name to either a "Sales" list or "Check In" list. Then the app can export these lists to a CSV file and we compile all the data.
App works perfectly as expected. NOW I want to be able to sync data between multiple devices so that every device will see an up to date Sales and Check in list. The check in list is most important because then our faculty chaperones can all see who has arrived to the dance in real time. I figured I would need to build a server to hold all the data as opposed to on the individual devices like I am doing now (CoreData). Can anyone please give me guidance or advice as to where to go from here? I am using Swift and developing for iOS 10.
I would just answer the general approach to tackle this problem since the implementations would largely be depending on many factors (what database technology is available, the platform of the server, etc.)
You are absolutely right, you need a server to hold the data. Technically speaking, it is a database that holding the data. Thus, you need a database running on your server (there are tons of selections here: Maria DB, SQL Server, Mongo DB, etc.).
Next, you need to build a web service on top of the database so that the iOS app can interact with the database (add/delete/update/read rows). Web service is a very common layer in full-stack application since you normally don't access the database directly.
Finally, you need to guard your web service with some sort of authentication. I.e. you don't want any random person out there to be able to access your web service without permission. There are many implementations out there to secure your web service and you should be able to google that easily.
Firebase might be the easiest solution. Its pretty simple to setup, and its pretty simple to set up data persistence when you go off line. I'm big on trying to stick with the built in Apple services, but Firebase is hard to beat for simple apps.
Take a look at CloudKit, or perhaps Firebase or Azure, as services that will provide a back end server for you, and give you a tested SDK to build against.
I'm developing an app for my summer iPhone class that is designed for couples, and am not sure the best way to have two different users phones reading and writing to the same database for a single account. The two users create and grant points to each other for "rewards", "penalties" and "prizes". I'm attempting to put the local databases into CoreData and then push it into iCloud. However, I'm only finding ways that that works for a single persons app. This is a two player game that needs to update a shared database. I would greatly appreciate if you would have any suggestions on ways to either send notifications directly to each and maintain congruent separate local databases, or to have a single back end database for two users in a single account that both users' phone can push and pull from to read and write. I'm having trouble finding the right path to pursue for this.
Thanks.
You can easily save Database on server side with the help of many mechanism like PHP Script is the best example for this.
link - Advices on server implementation for server/client structure iOS App development?
There is a third-party framework for iOS called Parse. It's a terrific backend service that adds a cloud database. You can create objects and store it in the cloud and access it anytime, and it comes with push notifications and analytics functionality. It's tuned for many platforms, including iOS and it's straightforward to access all of its functionalities.
The site is here: https://parse.com
Whenever you try to use one database for multiple device, you need to create / save database in server side or you can try Parse. because local database is always used for device specific.
I would like to sync a core data app with a user with a different iCloud ID and I am trying to figure out the most graceful way to do this. I do not want the data to sync with all users, but want to be able to sync among family members for instance. From the research I have done, I do not think I can do that using iCloud Core Data sync because it only syncs between devices with the same iCloud ID. I have looked at this stackoverflow answer and read a little bit about Ensembles, Parcelkit and TICoreDataSync, Parse etc., but it is not clear to me if any of those options will allow me to sync with multiple users. Does anyone have a good method for syncing a Core Data app with multiple users?
Ensembles and TiCoreDataSync might work. They can use Dropbox file syncing, so in principle they should work with Dropbox shared folders. I don't think these are the main intended uses, so I suggest contacting the developers and/or doing some good testing yourself before assuming this would actually work.
You'll need to think about the user experience, though. At a minimum, your users would both need Dropbox accounts and would have to set up a shared folder before beginning to sync data this way.
Parcelkit probably won't work. It uses Dropbox's data store API which, unlike other Dropbox services, doesn't appear to support shared data.
Services that do support this kind of sharing exist-- for example, Parse and Firebase-- but make sure to review their pricing carefully before using them. Also of course, there have been any number of projects that have their own custom server back end, but that obviously requires having someone on the team who can do that kind of work.
You need to think about other device types (Android at least) if you want your application to be reaching more users.
I'm doing the same now by the following way:
Setup an online database with proper web services (careful with implementation for security matters - DB should NEVER be exposed by anything other than the web services).
Create a Class for your communication with the server (using Class methods with security handling like authentication and authorisation).
Use the class in your app to communicate with the server (SQL operations are done on the server).
To integrate with CoreData you need to create the model in your app similar to the structure in the backend database. Then you need to create a similar class for the app that deals with only local CoreData.
A higher level class might be required if you want to make sure that operations done on both server and local data storage.
Besides, you have to implement a lot of conditions to make sure that data written in local ONLY after making sure that it is stored online (or create an engine for differed operations to run later).
Another Way if you are familiar with notifications:
Use structured notifications between devices for data operations in order to keep everything in sync with other users. The problem with this is the "Autonomy" of the operations. If two operations were done in approximately the same time, you have to find a way to make sure the order of the operations is done properly (maybe timestamp or something).
I'm looking into the same thing for my app and I 'think' you can do a fairly unsecured version of what you are after using using the public folder in cloud kit as mentioned in this question (no accepted answer at time of posting) : Private data sharing using CloudKit
You would need to find a way to differentiate between data that is truly public and those shared among the users you need and some level of authentication.
I'm going to try exporting a permission file with access permission in it to whomever I want to share with combined with a unique identifier located in that permission file.
Keep in mind, as mentioned in the comments of the linked answer, my implementation will be security by obscurity (thanks for that phrase) unless you find a way of adding proper validation to it but my data is relatively insensitive.
Hope this, or any ridicule in the comments, points you in the right direction : )
So here is the basic structure I'm proposing:
Data warehouse (for want of a better word)
E-commerce online
Back-end MIS
etc
So the idea is that I have an Order for example. An order can be created via e-commerce site, or via back-end MIS. Either case the order should filter out to e-commerce to show order to user, and vise versa.
There will be other apps in the future.
So the thinking is, to have a central warehouse that wraps this data in a service API, and then the other apps push / pull to it.
Sound OK? I guess the question is syncing the data. When I create an order, do I push the order at create time to the warehouse, or put it to some queue, or is there some other method to keep all these in sync, assuming, near realtime to realtime sync is required.
Assume your REST server is just another data store. How would each client get updates from a plain old database when needed?
If you had each client poll the data store at regular intervals, that would be one solution.
We are trying to create an iPhone application that will automatically receive data from a database. Which is a database that will work with Xcode. Our goal is that users can go to our website and input information. That data will be recorded to a database. Once the user downloads our app, the info should then be retrieved from the database and included in the app. We are wondering what database is suitable. It must be able to receive information from a website AND submit it to an application.
You're unlikely to find a iOS "aware" database that can automatically sync content over the internet.
However, you can of course obtain the data over the internet yourself and then insert it into the local database on the device, in which case the popular (and supported out of the box) SQLite would seem like an obvious choice.
As #Deepak also suggests, you could use Core Data which is a (sort-of, ish) ORM that can automatically use SQLite as it's underlying storage mechanism.
The solution that most people use in this case is to use an RDBMS like MySQL and build a web-service layer on top of the database for the entities that your iPhone app is interested in.
This way, when a user goes to the web-app, they can add the data that you allow them to add there, and later on they can access the same data from the iPhone app via the web-service layer also.
Couchbase's new iOS-Couchbase framework is in beta right now - all the functionality of Apache CouchDB on your favourite developer platform - at https://github.com/couchbaselabs/iOS-Couchbase. the iOS release is new but we're looking for it to go places!
Its awesome sync abilities would allow you to pull down any relevant content from your website via HTTP/JSON, or further formats using shows and lists if needed. Pushing data the other way is just as easy. Sync can be continuous, or on demand, bidirectional or one way.
Take a look at some of the Couch App frameworks (not for iOS but for your website)
http://techzone.couchbase.com/community/articles/couchdb/recipes
http://www.mail-archive.com/user#couchdb.apache.org/msg13928.html lots of comments on this thread
A+
Dave