Everything I know about 4D for iOS is based on what was presented at the 
Summit; it was the first time for me too, to see the actual product in action 
and learn about its exciting features.

My understanding is that licensing works on the server side. When the mobile 
app attempts to perform a "sync" operation, a "named device" license is 
consumed.

4D for iOS builds a mobile app with an embedded database (I think I heard 
SQLite==CoreData) based on the tables and fields you select via the wizard. The 
mobile app already has all the records stored locally.

The idea is that the app can "sync" its database with its master (4D) via a 
special API, in other words, push local modifications, pull remote updates, and 
resolve conflicts. The "read only" restriction was dues to the absence of a 
fully functional authentication system in ORDA, which is necessary to protect 
the master database from unsolicited pushes.

Anyway, only registered devices can login to the server and perform a sync. If 
users upgrade their device, admin can remove the previous named device and 
replace it with the new, but the idea is that licenses apply to the sync 
operation, which is technically optional to the generated mobile app.

The way I understand it is that if you are not interested in a mobile 4D 
solution, but you simply want to create a standalone iOS app with an embedded 
database exported from your 4D database, you can do that without a 4D for iOS 
license. If you need to update your database, you just submit a new version to 
the store and ask users to update their app. Essentially it will be a static 
database, like a catalog.

4D for iOS targets developers who do not have the resources or skill to develop 
a mobile app. Otherwise, you could create your own connectivity API, map your 
4D database to SQLite, design your own mobile UI, and write your own swift 
code. But 4D for iOS does all of that for you. It is not a "freehand" design 
tool like 4D, where you can draw your own forms and write your own methods. It 
is a "guided" design tool based on selecting templates and clicking checkboxes, 
which means that the created app will naturally have a good mobile UI and no 
bugs (because you don't write any code).

You could say that the app would look too generic and really simple, but then, 
you or your iOS developer can use that as a starting point and add features 
using swift and X code. At that point the app will have "graduated" from 4D for 
iOS, but nevertheless the generated Minimal Viable Product would have been 
worth your while.

During the demo, each 4D table was mapped to an item on the tab bar. This is 
standard UI for an iOS application, but you could say that the app would a card 
based (and not a relational) database. This is where ORDA is so interesting, 
because it has the potential to perform an abstraction on the backend relation 
data model and present them as independent "data classes", or classes based on 
how we identify objects in normal life instead of "tables connected by 1 to N 
relations".

> 2018/04/09 21:52、Kirk Brooks via 4D_Tech <4d_tech@lists.4d.com> のメール:
> Something that wasn't discussed was how much they intend to charge for it. 
> The only detail I
> could glean was that it will be a "per device" license. So this doesn't
> mean you'll be able to make an iOS app using 4D. It's more that you can
> make an iOS app that browses data from your specific 4D.... server? 4D iOS
> server? That part wasn't clear to me.




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