SDKs and Beacon/Bluetooth LE development - bluetooth-lowenergy

There are a few beacon sites that released their SDK. For example, say
https://www.gimbal.com/ has an SDK for you to implement in your mobile
app so that you can talk to their manufactured beacons. Say you
appreciated many of the features and tools that their software had,
but you wanted to develop more tools... or maybe custom campaigns for
their beacons to be programmed to do. How would you go about doing
this? Can you build on top of an SDK? Mainly my question is, how can I
program their beacons to do more than their CMS offers? If I wanted to
build my own CMS with custom functionality and campaigns, could I do
this? How would I go about doing this?

How does a Beacon works?
You have an UUID (which refers to a company), a major, an minor and a RSSI.
Let's try with an example. Let's say that the UUID is from BestBuy, it will be the same for all its BestBuy beacons.
Then, the Major will determine in which stores it is (the one in Atlanta, the one in New York, etc.)
Then, the minor will determine where in this store the Beacon it is (near the DVD stand, near the TV stand, etc.)
And the RSSI (with the Tx—1m information) will help you to determines the distance between the beacon and you.
But, since, an UUID is only a suite of hex values, major/minor/rssi numbers, you have to know what they mean (if its the store in Atlanta or the one in New York, etc.)
So it means that the app needs the knowledge, inside it, or by asking a server
So, as long as you're connected to this database, you're good.
So I don't know about their SDK, since I worked with a custom made iBeacon, but it means, that if the SDK allows you to access the "numbers" and not "the translation", you're good and can do whatever you like. It depends on how much "transparency" the SDK give.
In other words, you could provide an "complement" of the SDK with your own.

Related

Do offline maps downloaded using here maps MapLoader expire?

If I use HERE's Android SDK and preload map data to the device storage,
do I need to reload these data every n days?
We are operating a demand responsive transport system in an area with poor cellular coverage. Having to relocate the cars periodically to some designated wifi access point would be inconvenient and integrating our vehicle dispatcher algorithm with off-the-shelve SatNavs is just not possible.
No, offline data is not expiring, nor needs to be refreshed.
If you are using also online services (and don't operate fully offline) it might happen that some online services (e.g. online routing, traffic, online search) respond with no or bad results with older mapdata (mostly something older than a year). So, if you also have online usecases, please consider a mapupdate every half a year.
Also keep in mind, that outdated mapdata might cause a bad user experience with newly build roads or changed road networks.

Can I migrate purchase between applications in macOS App Store?

I have several similar applications (A1-A3) with hugely the same codebase. They all do similar things (diagrams), each with a specialisation for a specific use case. I am now considering to create one app (B) that sells the specialisations as an Mac App Store In App Purchase. So basically, I reduce number of applications, but will provide same diagrams, just change how to sell them from dedicated app to in-app.
How can I best ensure that buyers of the "old" applications A1-A3 can use the specialisations they bought in the new software B? I don’t want to charge them twice. So, they should be able to “restore” the specialisation that they bought as a A2 in B. Is that possible? If so, how?
Within app B do following steps in the background or on click of the restore IAP-button:
Look for the "old" app A1-A3 using NSBundle bundleWithIdentifier
get the receipt of this bundle using appStoreReceiptURL
validate the receipt
unlock functionality
Bare in mind that the terms and conditions of Apple say something along the line of "only appstore IAP should be used to unlock features; don't roll your own license mechanism"

Microsoft Band - Sample sound recording?

Is this possible to record short, sample sound (like 10-15 sec) and store on paired phone/device?
Allowing user to gather sample sound from environment would be rally beneficial to our product.
unfortunately the Microsoft Band does not support this feature and the microphone is not exposed via an API of the current SDK https://developer.microsoftband.com/bandSDK
As danvy has said, unfortunately it isn't available within the SDK to access the microphone.
If there is enough voice from developers for this to be added, I'm sure that the Microsoft Band team would be happy to expose more of the features in the Band to developers through the SDK. There is a UserVoice site just for the Microsoft Health & Band team which you can ask for these sorts of features but I'm also sure that they check here too!

Does Simperium allow multi user collaboration?

On their Overview page one of the bullet points under "What it does" is:
Multiple users can collaborate with the same data at the same time
However there's nothing in the documentation to suggest how this can be done, all the real time syncing is done only between devices logged in with the same user. Their own Simplenote app which is built on the platform does allow multi-user collaboration, but this would appear to be using a private API that is not available to normal Simperium clients.
Is there something I've missed? Is it a feature that will be added in the future? If so, when?
We didn't release the collaboration feature yet, but if you'd like to test it, please, mail us and we'll get in touch with you: jorge.perez#automattic.com
Thank you!

Flex Mobile In-App Billing/Purchase

I've looked all over and found nothing about this topic - For people making mobile app games and want to sell levels or potions or whatnot from within the app, is this supported on Flex mobile apps? Are there plans to introduce it? I've found info about advertisement implementation... is this a possible next step? Do you have to use something like PayPal instead of Android Market?
Sorry if this has been asked, but I haven't found anything yet.
Thanks!
I know Adobe said at GDC Conference they are in the process of analyzing requirements to make in-app purchases available via Flash Player API. It's almost a year so far since that announcement but there has not been any further news. The work around/the way most client-server implement these business rule is on the server-side where they implement an entitlements model.
Yes, there are several native extensions that implement this functionality.
I have been using the ones from Milkman Games with good results, and the support is fantastic. No financial association, just a very satisfied user.
There is also a free iOS Storekit ANE as well, although in my experience with it there are still some bugs, notably with blank receipt values for restored transactions: http://code.google.com/p/in-app-purchase-air-ios/
Note: implementing your own entitlements is ill-advised for various reasons:
Apple doesn't allow using anything other than their own in-app
purchase API on iOS.
The various store implementations (well, Apple's
and Amazon's at least, Google Play is another story) handle all of
the details of international purchases and localized pricing for
you.
The store implementations handle payments, subscriptions, durable purchases, and a host
of other details that you will spend a lot of time getting right on your own.

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