How extensive are the Cryptographic options offered by Apple for the iPhone OS? Does it have public key infrastructure support? Can the Keystore (or I guess keychain) be leveraged by third party applications and are they able to pull/store private keys there? What about support for the LDAP for pulling user's public certificates?
Mac OS X and iPhone OS Security Services
Related
We have to deploy an enterprise ios app to employees. I came across multiple ways of doing it (http://www.apple.com/business/accelerator/deploy/app-distribution.html).
Either the MDM or the Over the Air(set up your own server for distribution) suits our need. We have to choose between these two.
I would like to know .....
What are the best MDM tools for distributing an ios enterprise app.
What are the advantages of using MDM tools over direct OTA
Thank you
A lot of this depends on the number of devices you plan on deploying to as well as whether or not you want some sort of "control" over your devices. If you could care less about harvesting the status of each device (offline, online, compliant, etc) in your fleet or controlling security settings, email settings, etc I would say skip MDM altogether. You could easily just setup a landing page (ala an App Store) via HTML, CSS, JS, etc and just have your users hit it to consume the app.
As eluded to above if you DO want to do things like see what devices are online/offline, push specific security rules to them, setup Exchange accounts, remote wipe devices, etc then definitely run with an MDM.
The answer really depends on your environment, what you wish to accomplish and how long you have before your deadline.
Regarding the "tools" everyone is playing by the same set of MDM rules set forth by Apple - the meat of the solution depends solely on how the MDM provider implemented the MDM capabilities. I'd recommend looking into AirWatch or MobileIron but understand that both typically take some spin-up time. If you need a quick solution try one of their SAAS models.
What are the best MDM tools for distributing an ios enterprise app?
Different persons have different thoughts and expectations about MDM. So, "best MDM tools" are different for different users.
I recommend you to refer any online articles (beware, there are paid ones among them) or feature comparison charts like:
Enterprise iOS (seems to be down these days) or
MDM Community
Find the one that best suits you and ask for a demo version. Most of them have a 30-day full feature demo, while some have a 14-day or 15-day demo.
What are the advantages of using MDM tools over direct OTA?
If there are more devices to which apps are to be installed, then I recommend using an MDM software because you can bulk push app to devices with MDM.
Take a look at this list.
OTA is easy to set up but difficult to 'manage'. If you need to do any kind of version control or asset management MDM is your best bet. The alternative is to add this via code in the app itself.
Team, kindly help me how to implement SAML based authentication for iPhone application. I have .NET REST based JSON webservice as my backend service.
Kindly advice me on this requirement.
There are existing standards and tools to support your requirement today. As Scott mentioned, it does require either using the embedded browser in iOS within your application or allowing the iOS Safari Browser to handle the SAML/Browser portion of SSO (each has its own pros/cons). You can check out this free White Paper entitled, "A Standards-based Mobile Application IdM Architecture" that talks about how Ping (my employer) customers are handling this today if you'd like some more ideas.
The SAML-only solution has properties that bother some due to the phishing risk of downloadable apps, but the mechanism involved is outlined at https://wiki.shibboleth.net/confluence/display/SHIB2/ECP
Other approaches involve hybrids of OAuth or other technologies but you won't find any standards or tool support for any of this.
I am developing an enterprise application for Android and iPhone platforms.
The question is if you have any way to publish on the AppStore and Android Market and make the application available only to users of this company and not available to anyone outside the company?
There are approximately 300 people who would use the App.
Thanks
Andre
I think an authentication process would be helpful in that case. However in iOS's case I would recommend to get an enterprise license, for your requirements.
For Android, it's pretty easy:
You can distribute the .apk file (the application package) without having to use the market at all. You can either post it on a web server, or otherwise send it to them via email.
Bonus: If you send it to the GMAIL account they use on their phone, the can install the apk file attachment directly.
As far as limiting distribution in the Android market, you really can't prevent people from discovering and downloading your application. Your best bet is to keep distribution local to your company using a private web server.
For iOS, check out the enterprise license.
Can mapkit framework provided in iphone be used to create an enterprise application, without violating Google privacy and terms. As I am creating enterprise application using enterprise certificate (http://developer.apple.com/programs/iphone/enterprise/) form apple, wanted to know weather I can use makkit framework in my application application for distribution within the enterprise and on itunes app store.
Please let me know if there is any additional legal agreement/certificates involved.
Thanking you in advance.
Plenty of apps do. I guess it's an assumption on my part, but I've assumed that the presence of MapKit in the API implies that whatever licensing issues might have been there have been taken care of already.
How can I search for wireless networks (and connect to one after) within an iPhone application? Is it possible?
Legally, you can't do that. Apple does not provide an API to work with. You could try private frameworks APPLE80221, but your application will be rejected from the Apple Store. Using private frameworks is a breach of Apple's development licence.