Software Engineering Issues in Mobile Application Development - Essay Example

Name of the student Name of the institution Name of tutor Date of submission Introduction Software Engineering Issues in Mobile Application Development Most of software engineering used in mobile application shares similar practices with traditional applications (Charland & Leroux, 2011). In mobile application development the following issues should be considered. First, software engineering issues for mobile application development. The interaction of the said application among each other, the mobile devices have several applications from different sources with the chances f interaction among them. Secondly, the application sensor handling was another important issue to be considered (Holzer & Ondrus, 2011). The accelerometers which normally respond to the device movements, several touch screen gestures, the global positioning systems and the microphones that are usable in applications other than voice calls, multiple networking protocols which are contained in a single device. Another important factor to be considered is the nature and types of hard and software platform. The mobile applications are normally required to support various devices with several screens sizes and hardware’s. Furthermore, different versions of the operations systems are released much more frequently than the embedded devices complicating the support. Lastly, the power consumption and the life span of battery should be considered in building mobile application (Holzer & Ondrus, 2011). Many aspects have been mention in the application as they have direct impact on the power system and the life of device as a whole. This paper intends to discuss the mobile application in real life situation. Secured Web Access Banner for instance is an Oracle-based system which is used at EMU as well as in an ERP solution. This kind of system is one of the most complicated systems with several and thousands of tables that consist of confidential data about students, faculty, and staff among some universities (Holzer & Ondrus, 2011). The use of Oracle applications is housed behind the firewall, which makes them very secure and accessing them from outside becomes extremely difficult. Banner is a source of information needed for the course Lookup, weekly schedules and giving the final grades in school (Charland & Leroux, 2011). Both types are readily available in web form through Banner self services web portal but its usage is not exactly suitable for small screen on mobile phones (Vaid et al, 2015). The initial method of accessing the oracle database is through the use of oracle database server. One of the official website suggests that this is one of the ideal ways to securely connect the embedded devices and mobile application to the Oracle Database. Since there is an established enterprise for EMU, this application is one of the best in terms of mission critical application or any other application where high performance and reliability are required (Shin, Hong, & Dey, 2012). Some of the benefits of using the oracle database in mobile server include 1. Secure, resilient, efficient mobile synchronization with oracle database 2. Remote application, user and device management 3. It is robust and reliable mobile data application This technology further supports cross platform development and familiar data access interfaces which include ODBC, JDBC and ADO.NET. The support client platform is shown in table below Oracle Supported Client Platforms The user interface architecture for device with a mobile client and the client database Figure 1: User Interface In an existing mobile application, it can have SQLLite database designed and implemented on the front end of a mobile device. The SQLLite Mobile client on the device sometimes would perform SQLLite database synchronization with the Oracle database on the back end via or Synch Engine and through the Oracle Database mobile server (Charland & Leroux, 2011). Application Architectural platform From the above design, it combines several tools together and framework that helps in enhancing device performance. It contains multiple layers which starts from the bottom level, which is the robust Linux kernel indicating the core drivers of mobile OS. The upper layer helps in accessing fundamental framework such as Dalvik virtual Machine Zygot. Tools used in the development of application Android SDK The Android SDK includes several tools for developers: Eclipse + ADT plugin: it is and IDE that normally used for JAVA development. ADT plugin that brings a set of options and to ease the development Android SDK tool that comprises a set of development and debugging tool Android platform tools that includes a set of android versions to be downloaded Package diagram Android software development does not follow any specific structural design and pattern. This makes it difficult for current developers to maintain the existing code and work on it. In this case, the application is organized and classified into packages, which of each contain classes that belong under similar category (Charland & Leroux, 2011). This system contains three main packages which includes activity, manager and service. The activity package contains two sub packages which are account and course while the course sub package contains one sub-package (Vaid et al, 2015). The diagram is shown below Activity for example contains all classes that represent the application activities (screen) plus their operations. It is responsible for starting the application and displaying screens on the said mobile device. The application uses the service package to establish the communication between the application strategy and the owner’s web server. It also uses the manager package to manage its own data that are being produced while the application is running and runs operations that check the connectivity availability (Butler, 2011). Managers: it contains four different classes. Manager is responsible for keeping temp data that are used by the application and for checking the connectivity network changes. Service: it contains the Background services, Service function classes and JSONPaser. They help in providing communication between the application and the web server, creating the requests and parsing the web server’s response (Butler, 2011). Account: is the sub package of the activity and normally contains the classes that are responsible for sign in, register, change password and change account name operations and activities. Course: is the sub package of the activities and contains the classes that are responsible for the display of the course’s activities and provides their functionality (Vaid et al, 2015). Poll: poll is the sub package of the course and provides the classes that display the poll activities as well as their functionality. Class diagram The classes diagram is given below and indicates the class system, including attributes and operations of the classes. Classes belong to the manager package and the classes include JSONParser and service Function not represented. Example Developing of an E-menu E-menu is very important in enhancing the service delivery hotel. It can help in enhancing the dining experience, increase restaurant revenue and reduce waiting time. However they are expensive to design and use compared to printed menu. The basic flow is shown in the diagram below The design explains the process from customer arrival, ordering serving process, eating process, make payment and walk out of the restaurant. When developing a prototyping, the above key functions should be considered. Reference Butler, M. (2011). Android: Changing the mobile landscape. Pervasive Computing, IEEE, 10(1), 4-7. Charland, A., & Leroux, B. (2011). Mobile application development: web vs. native. Communications of the ACM, 54(5), 49-53. Holzer, A., & Ondrus, J. (2011). Mobile application market: A developer’s perspective. Telematics and informatics, 28(1), 22-31. Shin, C., Hong, J. H., & Dey, A. K. (2012). Understanding and prediction of mobile application usage for smart phones. In Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (pp. 173-182). ACM. Vaid, J., Poh, M. Z., Saleh, A., Kalantarian, S., Poh, Y. K. C., Rafael, A., & Ruskin, J. (2015). DIAGNOSTIC ACCURACY OF A NOVEL MOBILE APPLICATION (CARDIIO RHYTHM) FOR DETECTING ATRIAL FIBRILLATION. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 65(10_S). Read More