Mobile SDKs are a great way to make your service or API easily consumable by the large number of developers out there looking for state of the art tools to make their apps stand out in the competitive marketplaces, but building a stable, compatible and successful SDK is quite a challenge. In this talk we the technical and design challenges involved in developing an efficient mobile SDK that is highly compatible with its host mobile app, and the various considerations we took into account and the lessons we’ve learned while designing and building LivePerson’s native mobile SDK.

2. Yaron Karasik
Mobile SDKs:
Considerations and
Best Practices
Yaron Karasik

3. Yaron Karasik New York
Greenwell
Hi, I’m Yaron
Karasik

5. What is a mobile
SDK?

6. Why build a native
Mobile SDK?

7. Offer a mobile
specific service
Make existing service
or API easily usable

9. App developers are a
well defined target
market and business
model

10. What do we need to
consider when
building a SDK?

11. How much time do
you have to hook
the developer?

13. What’s the easiest way
for a developer to solve
an SDK related issue?

16. Your SDK is a guest
in its host app
Creative Commons Image: Liz Mc
https://www.flickr.com/photos/11638547@N00/3827808607

17. Minimum use
of resources
Easy to integrate
and use
Maximum
compatibility
Provide your
own UI?

18. Users know
what the app is
doing

19. Users know
what the app is
doing

20. Yaron Karasik
Don’t kill the
battery

21. Yaron Karasik
Be thrifty with
cellular data

22. Not real time?
Batch requests

23. Real time? Use mobile
optimized transport and
API

24. Polling
Long Polling
SSE
Websockets

25. Keep your payloads
as small as possible

26. Memory - Allocations & Leaks

27. Performance

28. Instruments

29. Automated Build
Process and Testing
Don’t crash the host
app

30. Never ask the user
for permissions..

31. ..but definitely use them if
permission has been given
Class $CLLocationManager =
NSClassFromString(@"CLLocationManager");
if ([CLLocationManager authorizationStatus] != kCLAuthorizationStatusDenied) {!
..!
}!

32. Location
Services
Twitter
Facebook
Address
Book
Photos
Camera
Notifications
Microphone
Calendars
Bluetooth

33. Again, users
know what the
app is doing..

34. Notifications
Push requires
server side support
and developer trust

35. Notifications
Local is very useful
if already enabled
by developer

36. App Size

37. Local Storage & Security
• Don’t use local storage it you don’t have to
• If you do, take good care of app data
• Encrypt sensitive information
• Purge it when you’re done
• Use SSL for all networking

38. Should I use open
source code in an SDK?

39. OS Version Compatibility

41. Architecture Compatibility

42. When will the
developer upgrade
the SDK?

43. Much later than
you’d like
So design your APIs
for the long run

44. Make it easy to
integrate and use

45. Instant onboarding
Free tier (or trial)

46. Interactive docs are cool

47. Indicate successful integration

48. Use CocoaPods..
platform :ios, '7.0'!
!
pod 'AFNetworking', '~> 2.1'!
pod 'Reachability'!
pod 'LivePerson', '~> 1.5.448'!
pod 'SocketRocket', '= 0.3.1-beta2'

49. ..or a minimum integration flow
1. Add required frameworks
2. Add SDK

50. Simple SDK Launch
[[SDKManager shared] initWithAppId:@“XYZ-ABC”];

51. Developer Logs
EcoTest[2051:66030] [LPMobile//info]
Loaded. #ios #info!
!
EcoTest[2051:66030] [LPMobile//
warning] The server has reported an
error with your app. This may be
caused by a bad configuration - Please
contact mobile@liveperson.com for
assistance. #ios #warning

52. Smart callbacks
and event reporting
Notifications
BlocksDelegates

53. Configuration -
Server or Client side?

54. Help the developer
keep the SDK updated
Cocoapods + Github

55. Should your SDK
include UI?

57. Provide UI friendly
API, allow developer
to use their own UI
Plan A

58. Provide a view
controller for the
developer to present
Plan B

59. Implement your own
UI, automatically
integrate with host
Plan C

60. Maintain App
Context

61. Custom Branding

62. Device and orientation
support

63. OS Version Compatibility

64. What about assets?
• Use flat design when you can
• PNG crush required assets
• Consider downloading and caching
• Download bundle on first launch

65. Memory
Networking
Documentation
UI
Devices
OS Versions
Battery
Permissions
Security
Storage
App Size
Performance
Summary

66. Thank You!
We are hiring

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