Parse-Over: What to do now Facebook has closed Parse

(Image Credit: iStockPhoto/ilbusca)

When Parse was acquired by Facebook three years ago; developers knew the end wouldn’t be too far away. At the time, Facebook emphasised that it was an acquisition for the MBaaS service; not for the talent that resided in the company.

Three years on, “we need to focus our resources elsewhere” according to Kevin Lacker, co-founder of Parse. Even though developers knew this day was coming, many of us have continued using...

3 February 2016 | Development Tools

Opinion: If Flash is dead, is HTML5 now ready for the big time?

Picture credit: "HTML5 Logo On Screen", by "David Martyn Hunt", used under CC BY / Modified from original

There was a 17 year gap between HTML5, which was finalised and published on October 28 2014, and its predecessor HTML4. In that time, the technology landscape changed in virtually every conceivable way. Google was founded a year after HTML4 was finalised. Mark Zuckerberg was 13 years old. Steve Jobs had only just returned to Apple. Heck, in the UK, it would be a year until...

26 January 2016 | Development Tools

Degrees of intimacy: Tablet, phablet, smartphone and wearable

(Image Credit: iStockPhoto/onurdongel)

By JP Luchetti, Consultancy Director, Mubaloo

According to a 2002 book called ‘The Mobile Phone: Towards new categories and social relations’ by Leopoldina Fortunati, an Italian feminist, theorist and author, the mobile phone is one of the most intimate devices we have.

Since then, the definition of mobile now includes a variety of different device types, including tablet, smartphone, phablet and wearable. Each device...

3 March 2015 | Android

What Apple WatchKit brings to the party for developers

Picture credit: iStockPhoto

Last week, Apple released WatchKit to developers. Over the next few months, ahead of the launch of Apple Watch, developers now have the opportunity to take their existing apps and add the necessary extensions to interact with Apple Watch. This point is really key here, Apple isn’t telling developers they have to build new apps, merely take the successful apps they already have and extend them.As alluded to when Apple introduced the watch, much of the...

26 November 2014 | Developer

Why the iOS app security fears may be missing the mark

Brett Wickenden, technical operations director, Mubaloo

Last month, a study was released about purported security vulnerabilities in iOS devices. We'd like to clarify that when reading through HP's press release, there is no mention of iOS apps or devices - however, it is being reported that the study singled out iOS apps.

We therefore decided to take a closer look.   The study used HP’s new “Fortify on Demand for Mobile” platform to...

9 December 2013 | Developer

Why iBeacons has developers excited about Bluetooth Low Energy

The iPhone 4S was the first commercial product to ship with Bluetooth 4.0. At the time, the technology got some attention from industry observers who speculated about its potential - especially around a new technology called Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). Since it was released devices such as FitBit, UP and the Pebble SmartWatch have helped to demonstrate some of the possibilities of the technology. With iOS 7, Apple is extending the possibilities of BLE with...

7 October 2013 | Developer

How LTE opens up new opportunities with mobile apps

By Mark Mason, founder and CEO, Mubaloo

The data wars have begun. Eleven months after launching the UK’s first LTE network, EE has been joined by O2 and Vodafone with Three just around the corner. EE has the widest and fastest network available - and for the moment offers the best data allowance. From a user perspective, LTE delivers faster network speeds than most home or office connections. This means video streaming and video calls are not only better quality; without any...

30 September 2013 | Cloud

Facebook acquires Parse: what does this mean for enterprise developers?

The recent announcement that Facebook has acquired Parse has caused a bit of a stir around the developer community, as so often seems to be the case when a large company (Facebook especially) acquires a start up.

Although Facebook has emphasised that it is an acquisition and not a hunt for new talent, it seems many mobile developers are still skeptical about what will happen to the Mobile Backend-as-a-Service (MBaaS) provider.

Parse offers mobile developers a quick, easy and...

30 April 2013 | Development Tools

What does the new iPad mini mean for developers?

By Mubaloo developers David Dixon and James Frost

Yesterday in San Jose, Apple revealed its latest addition to the tablet family, the iPad mini, along with the debut of the fourth-generation iPad, a new 13-inch retina display MacBook and a new iMac.

Apple revealed that there have been over 35 billion downloads on the App Store, that there are 200 million devices running iOS 6 and that there have been 100 million iPads sold to date. This latest move is a bid to ensure the firm...

24 October 2012 | Developer

What does the iPhone 5 mean for developers?

By James Frost, iOS developer, Mubaloo

Yesterday in San Francisco, Apple unveiled its latest member of the iPhone family, the iPhone 5. Many have complained the latest update “lacks wow”, that there’s not much to it, nothing groundbreaking, but actually I think this is to do with our expectations and the hype surrounding Apple.

The actual technology used in the iPhone 5 is arguably the best on the market but because our expectations are set so high, we...

13 September 2012 | Development Tools