Ahmed Bakir

Using Apple Pay to Accept Payments

In the short time since its introduction, Apple Pay has driven Near-Field Communication (NFC) payments with unprecedented momentum. Apple now takes this a step further by allowing developers to use Apple Pay to accept payments for physical goods in their apps, a feature which has been successfully adopted by Uber and Starbucks. This chapter introduces readers to Apple Pay by demonstrating how to integrate the framework for in-app payments, as well as discussing traditional challenges in implementing payment systems.

Building Your First Internet of Things App

To help introduce you to the style of this book, your first project will be a very simple application that demonstrates several of the steps you will take when building an Internet of Things application: creating a project, including hardware-specific frameworks, retrieving data, and displaying it. For your first project, you will create an application that logs the user’s location using his phone’s GPS chip and displays it on a map. This app could be used to help him find his car if he has the tendency to forget where it is (like a certain author). Figure 1-1 shows the mock-up, indicating the major user interface (UI) components and the flow of the application. The application you will create will follow the guideline set by this mock-up closely.

Building Location Awareness with iBeacons

This chapter introduces iBeacon technology and will show you how to use the Core Location framework to interact with beacons. You’ll learn how to establish a region around an object, determine when a region has been entered or exited, and estimate your proximity to a beacon. You’ll also learn how to configure your iOS device to act as an iBeacon transmitter.

Connecting to a Bluetooth LE Device

Thanks to its open standards, Bluetooth Low-Energy (LE), also known as BLE,has established itself as a leader for hardware manufacturers looking to create connected accessories for iOS. This chapter introduces Core Bluetooth, Apple’s framework for Bluetooth-based communication, to send and receive messages from a Bluetooth LE device. Additionally, we will discuss Bluetooth best practices for battery life and a positive user experience.

Integrating Third-Party Fitness Trackers and Data Using the Fitbit API

One would be remiss to discuss health sensors without mentioning the most popular connected motion tracker on the market, the Fitbit. Through its web-based API (application programming interface), Fitbit allows developers to access activity logged from its hardware, as well as related health information from Fitbit’s ecosystem, including meals and weight. This chapter will teach developers how to connect to the API from within their apps, as well as how to retrieve information from it and log new activities.

Home Automation Using HomeKit

Much like Apple sought to unify health data with HealthKit, HomeKit is Apple’s entry into home automation. Apple created a unified communications protocol—HomeKit Accessory Protocol— for connected home manufactures. HomeKit is a common set of APIs (application programming interfaces) for applications that provides integration between iOS devices and accessories that support the HomeKit Accessory Protocol.

Building an Interactive watchOS App

In this chapter, you will learn how to make the CarFinder watchOS app even more powerful by adding interactive features. While an app that can let you view information from your iPhone is great, there is even more value in an app that allows you to create new data from your watch. The interactive features you will add to the CarFinder app in this chapter will demonstrate the following features of watchOS:

Building a Stand-Alone watchOS App

In this chapter, you will learn about one of the greatest attributes of watchOS 2: its capabilities that let you build an app that runs natively, even offline, without maintaining an active connection to your parent iOS app. So far, you have noticed that watchOS 2 apps share many design features with iOS apps, including interface controllers (view controllers), notifications, and delegation. With watchOS 1, you were limited to building “listener” apps, designed to respond to data manifests from a parent app; they were not intended to provide anything more than consumption. watchOS 2 bridges a huge gap because it allows you to build apps that not only are designed like iOS apps but also function like iOS apps.

Building an App That Interacts with a Raspberry Pi

In this chapter, we will write an app that communicates with a Raspberry Pi device on the local Wi-Fi network that allows us to flip the lights on and off on a custom module with LEDs. This might not seem like a significant accomplishment, but keep in mind that just as you can flip on and off some LED lights, you can control any other connected devices in a similar fashion.

Using Core Motion to Save Motion Data

In the last chapter, you learned how to set up an application for HealthKit, Apple’s shared repository for health data, and query for specific health data types. In this chapter, you will learn how to use Core Motion to access live motion data from a user’s device, and how to save it back to HealthKit, where it will be accessible to all applications.