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Apple Vs. Android: Developing Secure Enterprise Apps

Republished with permission from Apperian Blog

Written by James Seibel, Sr. Engineer in Apperian Labs

Mobile Device Management (“MDM”) is an infrastructure protocol for executing privileged commands on mobile devices. In other words, MDM is an infrastructure technology that enables administrators to take full advantage of features already included on devices. The MDM specifications are provided by operating system designers, for example Apple and Google, and include guides on how to implement them. It is crucial that enterprise app developers understand the differences in order to create secure and effective applications.

Apperian Apple vs. Android image

When it comes to the mobile device market, Apple continues to maintain an impressive lead in market share over Android devices with 42% of the U.S. smartphone market versus 26% for Samsung, according to market research from the NPD Group. The two giants are trailed by Motorola, LG, HTC and Blackberry, respectively. But when it comes to offering the most secure platform for developing enterprise apps, which operating system comes out on top – iOS or Android? Let’s compare.

The two operating platforms each have their own mobile device management (MDM) specifications. While the two approaches couldn’t be more different from one another, they are both important to take into account when developing enterprise apps – where security is often a client’s top priority.

For instance, the iOS MDM uses a single MDM administrator for each device while the Android MDM allows for multiple MDM apps per device. Meanwhile, for iOS devices, MDM commands are generated by the iOS operating system while MDM commands for Android devices are included in the Android library function and the determination as to when to execute those are carried out by programmers.

The key differences between the iOS and Android MDM strategies boil down to this: Apple defines and controls the MDM command list and sends out streams of MDM commands to all iOS devices (such as location tracking/Find My Phone to deleting App Store-installed apps from a device if a security flaw is detected). By comparison, the Android MDM command list is developed by different Android manufacturers (HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung, etc.) with a smaller amount of MDM commands that cover security features….

Read the full post on App Developer Magazine!

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About Author

Amy Groden-Morrison
Amy Groden-Morrison

Amy Groden-Morrison has served more than 15 years in marketing communications leadership roles at companies such as TIBCO Software, RSA Security and Ziff-Davis. Most recently she was responsible for developing marketing programs that helped achieve 30%+ annual growth rate for analytics products at a $1Bil, NASDAQ-listed business integration Software Company. Her past accomplishments include establishing the first co-branded technology program with CNN, launching an events company on the NYSE, rebranding a NASDAQ-listed company amid a crisis, and positioning and marketing a Boston-area startup for successful acquisition. Amy currently serves as a Healthbox Accelerator Program Mentor, Marketing Committee Lead for the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge Launch Smart Clinics, and on the organizing team for Boston TechJam. She holds an MBA from Northeastern University.

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The Alpha platform is the only unified mobile and web app development and deployment environment with distinct “no-code” and “low-code” components. Using the Alpha TransForm no-code product, business users and developers can take full advantage of all the capabilities of the smartphone to turn any form into a mobile app in minutes, and power users can add advanced app functionality with Alpha TransForm's built-in programming language. IT developers can use the Alpha Anywhere low-code environment to develop complex web or mobile business apps from scratch, integrate data with existing systems of record and workflows (including data collected via Alpha TransForm), and add additional security or authentication requirements to protect corporate data.

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