MobilePro

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #196: Mission Possible—The Model Context ProtocolHi ,Welcome to the 196th edition of MobilePro!APIs changed how apps talk to each other. Now, a new protocol is changing how apps talk to AI. Imagine asking your assistant to open a GitHub issue, tweak a 3D model in Blender, or fetch a location from Google Maps, all through natural language. No clicks. No complex integrations. Just context.That’s the promise of the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a new open standard that bridges AI models and applications. If REST was built for the web, MCP is built for the AI era. It’s how we move from static APIs to dynamic, conversational systems that understand intent and act intelligently.In this issue of MobilePro, we’ll unpack what MCP is, why it matters, and how it’s reshaping how developers build and connect software. You’ll discover:How we evolved from SOAP → REST → GraphQL → gRPC → MCPWhy standardization is key to AI-powered interoperabilityWhat real-world tools like GitHub, Blender, and Playwright are already doing with itHow MCP lays the groundwork for the agentic future, where AI doesn’t just respond, it actsThis isn’t just another API story, it’s the next leap in how humans, apps, and AI collaborate.This is excerpted from the bookLearn Model Context Protocol with Python, written by Christoffer Noring.Before we jump in though, let's take a quick look at last week's highlights:🚀 Introducing HeroUI Native alpha 15📼 Swift Profile Recorder📱 Hackers can steal 2FA codes and private messages from Android phones🤖 Meet the Flutter Extension for Gemini CLITake the Survey!Meet the AuthorChristoffer Noring is a passionate developer and educator who specializes in modern web technologies and AI integrations and works as an engineer at Microsoft. He’s also a tutor at the University of Oxford and is a published author on Angular, RxJs, generative AI, and now MCP. Christoffer has almost two decades of experience in software development and is a frequent speaker at tech conferences worldwide. According to his manager, his best quality is being able to break down complex technical concepts into simple, understandable terms.🚀 The Model Context ProtocolWe’ve gone from REST to GraphQL to gRPC, but now it’s time for a new mission (should you choose to accept it!). One that isn’t about APIs, but about how apps and AI talk to each other. Imagine controlling GitHub, Blender, or Google Maps through natural language. That’s the Model Context Protocol (MCP), the Mission Possible of the AI era, where seamless connection is no longer fiction.🧠 From SOAP to MCP: The Journey to a Standard for the AI EraIf you’ve been around long enough to remember SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), you probably remember the pain. XML everywhere, verbose requests, endless WSDL files. REST (Representational State Transfer) came along and felt like a breath of fresh JSON air, simple, intuitive, and perfect for the web.Then frontend teams started wanting just the data they needed, and GraphQL entered the chat. It made fetching data flexible but brought new headaches: over-fetching, under-fetching, and the infamous N+1 problem.Next up: gRPC (Google Remote Procedure Call). Google’s high-performance framework for microservices, powered by HTTP/2 and Protocol Buffers. Great for speed, not so much for simplicity.Each protocol fixed something but broke something else.Now, in the age of AI and natural language interfaces, we’ve hit a new question: how do we let AI interact with our apps as easily as users do?⚙️ The Need for a Common LanguageAs developers, we’re great at gluing systems together, REST, RPCs, SDKs, you name it. But that flexibility has a cost: complexity.We now live in a world where prompts are becoming the new UI. Users don’t want to click through menus; they want to ask. So how do we make our apps expose their capabilities to AI models in a way that’s standardized and understandable?Enter the MCP (Model Context Protocol), an open standard that lets apps describe what they can do and how to interact with them. Think of it like USB-C for AI applications: plug in, and everything just works.🚀 What MCP EnablesWith MCP, any app can act as a server exposing capabilities, and any client (like an AI model or agent) can use them.Take Blender, for example. There’s already a Blender MCP server that lets you control Blender through prompts. You can:Get scene and object informationCreate, delete, and modify shapesApply or create materials for objectsExecute any Python code in BlenderDownload the right models, assets, and HDRIs through Poly HavenGenerate AI-powered 3D modelsOther big names like GitHub, Playwright, and Google Maps are also adopting MCP (see the full list here).Suddenly, anything can have a natural language interface, not just chatbots, but tools, data, and systems.🤖 We All Get a JarvisIf this sounds like Iron Man’s Jarvis, you’re not far off. The way we build our applications is changing and becoming more standardized. By learning and using MCP, all your apps will be able to communicate with each other and share data in a standardized way. That means you will spend less time worrying about how to connect, or glue, your app to other apps and more time building the features that matter. MCP is what makes the agentic era possible, where AI doesn’t just respond to you but acts on your behalf.Want your assistant to fetch GitHub issues, deploy code, and update docs, just from your prompt? That’s the kind of interoperability MCP is building toward.🏁 The Big PictureMCP isn’t just another API standard. It’s the protocol rewriting the mission brief for developers. Less glue code, more productivity, and endless new possibilities for how software and users interact. In the world of AI, this mission isn’t impossible; it’s just getting started.If you want to learn more about MCP, then Learn Model Context Protocol with Pythonis the book for you!🚀The only resource you'll need to build, test, and deploy MCP servers and clients🧵Take a modern approach toward building, testing, and securing distributed agentic AI apps✨Get clear, professional guidance on developing for both LLM and non-LLM clientsLearn Model Context Protocol with PythonBuy now at $44.99!👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this new format of MobilePro.P.S.: If you have any suggestions or feedback, help us improve by sharing your thoughts. Click on the survey below.Take the Survey!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #174: Apple to unveil iOS 26 at WWDC 2025, Azure Premium v4 goes public, Perplexity labs introduced, Photoshop on Android, and more…Web Devs: Turn Your Knowledge Into IncomeBuild the knowledge base that will enable you to collaborate AI for years to come💰 Competitive Pay Structure⏰ Ultimate Flexibility🚀 Technical Requirements (No AI Experience Needed)Weekly payouts + remote work: The developer opportunity you've been waiting for!The flexible tech side hustle paying up to $50/hourAPPLY NOWHi ,Welcome to the 174th edition of MobilePro! This week’s issue dives into major leaps in AI, mobile platforms, and developer productivity—from iOS’s dramatic redesign to autonomous AI agents transforming the software lifecycle:📱 iOS 26 redefines the iPhone: Apple is set to unveil iOS 26 with a sweeping redesign, AI enhancements, and cross-device interface unity at WWDC 2025.📶 Azure App Service Premium v4 goes public preview: Microsoft launches its fastest, most scalable App Service plan yet—with major TCO benefits.🧩 Apple to unify OS versioning: Apple may align all OS versions (iOS, macOS, etc.) to annual numbers like “26”, bringing consistency across the ecosystem.💬 MVI’s misunderstood past and modern Android role: Explore the full history and modern form of the Model-View-Intent pattern in Android development.🎨 Material 3 makes motion expressive: Google’s latest Material Design update brings emotional, physics-driven animations to Jetpack Compose for more engaging UIs.🖌️ Photoshop touches down on Android: Adobe launches the beta of Photoshop for Android, bringing powerful AI tools and core editing features to mobiles.And in What’s Happening in AI?—Perplexity unveils a Lab that builds whole apps from your prompts, and we ask: will AI leave some developers behind? Stick around for this week’s Developer Tip to learn about Apple's iOS App Store pre-order system and the Did You Know? section to know how an iOS app exposed sensitive user data!Let’s dive in!P.S.: If you have any suggestions or feedback, or would like us to feature your project on a particular subject, please write to us. Just respond to this email!Machine Learning Summit 2025JULY 16–18 | LIVE (VIRTUAL)20+ ML Experts | 25+ Sessions | 3 Days of Practical Machine Learning and 40% OFFBOOK NOW AND SAVE 40%Use Code EARLY40 at checkoutDay 1: LLMs & Agentic AIFrom autonomous agents to agentic graph RAG and democratizing AI.Day 2: Applied AIReal-world use cases from tabular AI to time series GPTs and causal models.Day 3: GenAI in ProductionDeploy, monitor, and personalize GenAI with data-centric tools.Learn Live from Sebastian Raschka, Luca Massaron, Thomas Nield, and many more.40% OFF ends soon – this is the lowest price you’ll ever see.📱 What's Happening in Mobile Development?If there’s any major news in the world of mobile app dev in the last week, MobilePro has you covered.iOSiOS 26: All the new iPhone features we’re expecting next week: Apple is set to unveil iOS 26 at WWDC 2025, featuring a major redesign. This is the biggest update since iOS 7—with a unified interface across Apple devices, along with enhanced AI capabilities under Apple Intelligence 2.0, new app updates including a dedicated Games app, and various usability improvements like charging estimates, live translation, and eSIM transfer to Android.Apple is reportedly going to rename all of its operating systems: Apple will reportedly rename all its operating systems to align with the upcoming year—e.g., iOS 26 instead of iOS 19—to standardize version numbers across platforms, with the change set to be announced at WWDC on June 9th.AndroidGmail gets a fresh look with Material 3 Expressive redesign: Google has begun rolling out a Material 3 Expressive redesign for Gmail, featuring vibrant colors, rounded cards, and updated animations. The update, part of Android 16's visual refresh, is gradually being enabled via a server-side switch in Gmail app version 2025.05.11.Adobe launches Photoshop beta for Android with AI-powered editing tools: Adobe has officially released the beta version of Photoshop for Android devices. Available for free on the Google Play Store during the beta period, the app offers features such as layers, masks, and AI-driven tools like Generative Fill, powered by Adobe Firefly. Users can also access a library of free Adobe Stock assets and utilize tools like Object Select and Magic Wand for precise selections.MicrosoftAzure App Service Premium v4 plan is now in public preview: Microsoft has launched the Azure App Service Premium v4 plan in public preview, offering improved performance (up to 50%), enhanced scalability, and lower total cost of ownership—making it ideal for modernizing high-demand applications across Windows and Linux platforms.GitHub Universe 2025: Here’s what’s in store at this year’s developer wonderland: GitHub Universe 2025 will be held on October 28–29 in San Francisco, featuring hands-on sessions, AI-powered development insights, and community networking, with Super Early Bird passes now available at a $700 discount. Virtual attendance is free for those unable to join in person.OtherPlatform '24.2 is out: Pega Platform™ '24.2 introduces significant updates, including the removal of embedded third-party services (Elasticsearch, Kafka, Cassandra), mandatory Java 17 support, and enhanced Insights with autogenerated tables, editable data, and advanced security policies—while also expanding AI-driven low-code development, case management, and user experience capabilities.Curious about how to build buzz before your app launches? This article explores Apple's iOS App Store pre-order system, detailing how developers can set it up, manage pricing, update metadata, and use it to boost visibility and downloads on release day. You can check out the article here.In case you have any tips to share with your fellow mobile developers, do reply to this mail and we’d be glad to feature you in a future edition of MobilePro.🤖 What’s Happening in AI?AI is evolving fast—are you keeping up? MobilePro brings you key discussions, trends, and expert takes in one place.Court documents reveal OpenAI is coming for your iPhone: Unsealed court documents reveal OpenAI's ambitious plan to evolve ChatGPT into a “super-assistant” poised to rival Siri—emphasizing deep personalization, cross-platform presence, and challenging tech gatekeepers by advocating for users to choose their default AI assistant.Introducing Perplexity Labs: Perplexity has launched Perplexity Labs for Pro users—a powerful new mode that transforms ideas into complete projects like reports, spreadsheets, and web apps using advanced tools such as code execution, deep browsing, and asset generation. Labs complements the existing Research mode by handling more complex, multi-step tasks in 10+ minutes for deeper, actionable results.Azure AI Search unveils agentic retrieval for smarter conversational AI: Microsoft has introduced agentic retrieval in Azure AI Search (public preview), a dynamic multi-turn query system that improves answer relevance by up to 40% over traditional RAG by autonomously planning and executing retrieval strategies using Azure OpenAI. It supports complex, context-aware queries with subquery planning, semantic reranking, and is designed for intelligent agents in enterprise use cases.AI won’t replace developers, but it will leave some behind: AI won't replace developers but will widen the gap between teams that adapt and those that don't. Success will hinge on integrating AI responsibly across the software lifecycle, emphasizing quality, trust, and resilience over mere speed.Factory ‘Droids’ AI agents tackle entire development lifecycle: Factory has introduced AI-powered “Droids” — full-fledged software development agents that go beyond coding to handle tasks like feature development from specs, codebase research, incident response, ticket management, and code reviews, all while integrating with common dev tools and maintaining organizational context. These agents aim to streamline the entire development lifecycle, signaling a potential shift in how developers collaborate with AI.💭 What is the Mobile Community Talking About?What are mobile app developers discussing? Do you have any concerns, advice, or tutorials to share?MobileProbrings them to you all in one place.MVI: The Pattern’s Full History, Misconceptions, and Modern Android Form: This article explores the full history, misconceptions, and modern application of the MVI (Model-View-Intent) architectural pattern in Android development—clarifying its origins prior to Redux, debunking common myths, and advocating for a flexible, context-driven implementation over rigid dogma.Less TODO, more done: The difference between coding agent and agent mode in GitHub Copilot: This article covers GitHub Copilot’s evolution into two AI agents: agent mode, a real-time assistant integrated into your editor, and coding agent, an asynchronous collaborator that tackles GitHub issues and delivers tested pull requests—streamlining development from ideation to deployment.Android 16: Exploring the Next Evolution of Notifications: This article introduces Android 16’s new Notification.ProgressStyle, a customizable notification format designed for real-time progress updates in use cases like food delivery or navigation. It provides a step-by-step guide on implementing this style, showcasing features like segmented progress bars, tracker icons, and live state transitions within a notification.Expressive Animations for Everyone: This article introduces Google's new Material 3 Expressive design update, which brings emotion and fluidity to UI with a new motion-physics system, and demonstrates how to implement dynamic, animated toggle buttons using Jetpack Compose to create a more engaging user experience.📚️ Latest in Mobile Development from PacktMobilePro presents the latest titles from Packt that ought to be useful for mobile developers.If you are an experienced UI/UX designer, developer, or product manager looking to improve team collaboration and elevate your Figma workflows, this book is for you.🤝 Streamline cross-functional collaboration with real-world Figma workflows, accurate design handoffs, and scalable team processes.🏗️ Build robust, scalable design systems for enterprise-grade UI/UX.🤖 Discover powerful plugins, APIs, and leverage AI to automate and extend Figma’s capabilities.Design Beyond Limits with FigmaPreorder now at $39.99!Mobile App Development Tutorial — Excerpt from SwiftUI Cookbookby Juan C. CatalanThe most basic building block of any application is text, which we use to provide or request information from a user. Some text requires special treatment, such as password fields, which must be masked for privacy reasons. In this excerpt from Juan C. Catalan’sSwiftUI Cookbook, you will implement different types of SwiftUI Text views. A Text view is used to display one or more lines of read-only text on the screen. ATextFieldview is used to display multiline editable text, and aSecureFieldview is used to request private information that should be masked, such as passwords.Implementing SwiftUI Text viewsYou will implement multiple types of text-related views and modifiers. Each step in this excerpt applies minor changes to the view, so note the UI changes that occur after each step. Let's get started:Replace the initialContentViewbody variable with our ownVStack. TheContentViewshould look like the following code:struct ContentView: View {var body: some View { VStack{ Text("Hello World") } }}Add the.fontWeight(.medium)modifier to the text and observe the text weight change in the canvas preview:Text("Hello World") .fontWeight(.medium)Add two state variables to theContentView.swiftfile:passwordandsomeText. Place the values below theContentViewstruct declaration. These variables will hold the content of the user's password andTextfieldinputs:struct ContentView: View { @State private var password = "1234" @State private var someText = "initial text"var body: some View {...}Now, we will start adding more views to theVStack. Each view should be added immediately after the previous one. AddSecureFieldand a Text view to theVStack. The Text view displays the value entered inSecureField:SecureField("Enter a password", text: $password) .padding()Text("password entered: \(password)") .italic()AddTextFieldand a Text view to display the value entered inTextField:TextField("Enter some text", text: $someText) .padding()Text(someText) .font(.largeTitle) .underline()Now, let's add some other Text views with modifiers to the list:Text("Changing text color and make it bold") .foregroundStyle(.blue) .bold()Text("Use kerning to change space between characters in the text") .kerning(7) Text("Changing baseline offset") .baselineOffset(100) Text("Strikethrough") .strikethrough() Text("This is a multiline text implemented in SwiftUI. The trailing modifier was added to the text. This text also implements multiple modifiers") .background(.yellow) .multilineTextAlignment(.trailing) .lineSpacing(10)Now is the moment to test the app. We can choose to run the app in a simulator or click the Play button in the canvas preview, which allows for interactivity. Play with the app and enter some text in theSecureFieldandTextField. Text entered in theSecureFieldwill be masked, while text in theTextFieldwill be shown.***There are plenty more such recipes, which you can read in SwiftUI Cookbook.SwiftUI CookbookBuy now at$44.99A popular iOS app, Sleep Journey: Insomnia Helper, exposed sensitive data of over 25,000 users—including names, sleep habits, and even alcohol use—due to a misconfigured Firebase server, highlighting the critical need for secure backend practices in mobile development.Sourced from App Developer Magazine.👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this edition of MobilePro. If you have any suggestions and feedback, or would just like to say hi to us, please write to us. Just respond to this email!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}