New Code Simplifies Live Communications Within Native Mobile Applications
Digium has released software development kits (SDKs) for Android and iOS, simplifying the process of adding live, in-app communications capabilities to mobile applications. The SDKs, released under a permissive open source license, include support for instant messaging, WebRTC voice and video calling, and the ability to send free push notification messages and calls to applications, even when offline or in the background. Businesses looking to improve customer satisfaction and engagement by adding live communications to their mobile app can now do so at a greatly reduced development cost.
The Respoke mobile SDKs allow an experienced developer to add messaging, voice, or video to a native app within a couple of days, rather than the weeks or months that it would typically take,” said Charlie Wilson, director of developer products at Digium. “This functionality, combined with our integrated push notification feature, greatly improves the ability for an enterprise to communicate directly and personally with its customers.
Until now, building real-time communications features into native mobile apps has required a small army of specialized experts, including people with a deep understanding of push notifications, call signaling, media subsystem integration, codecs, encryption and packetization. With the Respoke mobile SDKs, adding a rich suite of in-app communications features now takes only a few hours of planning and coding.
The Respoke mobile SDKs made it so easy to implement the real-time communications features of our app,” said Jason Adams, founder of Ninjanetic, an early user of the SDKs. “The interface is simple and straightforward, allowing us to implement all of the complexities of chat, calling and identity with just a couple of classes. A surprising amount of that code came straight from the example applications.
In addition to the mobile push notifications, the Respoke SDKs handle identity, message delivery and call signaling. Developers simply add code to handle various events and to incorporate select Respoke features into their user interface. The SDKs match the general design of the existing Respoke JavaScript library, yet adhere to best practices for iOS and Android. In another nod toward simplicity, the SDKs are integrated with CocoaPods and Maven, the package repositories for iOS and Android.
The Respoke platform has also been updated to support the features used by the SDKs. Developers will now see a push configuration tab when signing in to the Respoke Developer Console, allowing them to set the credentials and certificates required by Apple and Google and to set the rules that control if and when push notifications are sent.
Digium’s Respoke real-time communications platform includes access to the new mobile SDKs and is available as a free trial. Pricing plans start at $10 per month for basic usage and scale through higher usage tiers for enterprise customers and other large, custom applications. For more information, or to sign up for a free trial, visit www.respoke.io.
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