DEVELOPERS BLOG

What’s New for Android and iOS Developers in BlackBerry UEM 12.6

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With the recent release of BlackBerry Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) version 12.6 (formerly BES), developers have even more tools at their disposal now to write secure, connected and controlled applications for enterprise. This release aims at unifying the various BlackBerry software solutions that have been acquired or engineered under a single, amalgamated, all-encompassing platform.

With that, we have BlackBerry Unified Endpoint Management.

To coincide with the launch of UEM 12.6, we’ve even relaunched our BlackBerry enterprise developer website to highlight the opportunities developers have to interact and leverage the BlackBerry Development Platform.

The BlackBerry Dynamics SDK (formerly Good Dynamics) remains the foremost means for mobile app developers to secure communications/data, and deploy at scale to enterprise end-users via BlackBerry UEM. Rather than spending valuable time learning how to secure, deploy and manages these apps at a low-level, the Dynamics SDK allows developers to focus on building their commercial/business apps, by allowing the SDK framework to do the heavy lifting instead.

panther-icon-blackberry-lock-overlayThere is one interesting note for Android and iOS developers who have been using the Dynamics SDK and posting their apps to the BlackBerry MarketPlace for Enterprise Software; there are now updated overlay files/actionscripts to reflect the new BlackBerry lock overlay for your app’s icon. Existing apps in the market won’t need to be updated to reflect the new icon overlay (yet), however new submissions will require the updated iconography. Fortunately, the process is the same, and an updated video and template files are provided to make this as simple as possible.

Android developers, and particularly administrators, will be happy to learn that a Google domain is no longer required for Android for Work deployments in BlackBerry UEM 12.6. Troubleshooting remote application issues has also been greatly simplified, with the ability to retrieve Android device logs over BlackBerry UEM, by sending a Get device logs command.

When it comes to iOS, developers targeting iOS 9.3.2+ now have the ability to have their apps whitelisted (or blacklisted) within a compliance profile. As well, the capability to have their apps configured for their end-users according to the AppConfig schema is now being supported. BlackBerry UEM supports default and custom variables. Default variables represent standard account attributes (for example, username) and other predefined attributes (for example, server address used for device activation). Custom variables can be  created for other additional attributes.

To learn more about BlackBerry Unified Endpoint Management 12.6, complete documentation for administrators and developers can be referenced at https://help.blackberry.com/en/blackberry-uem/current

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