SAP says iOS software developer kit set for lift-off

SAP said it will deliver its software development kit for Apple’s iOS on March 30. SAP has already posted its iOS curriculum on its developer training site, SAP Academy.

Apple and SAP forged an alliance last year designed to bring enterprise apps to the iPhone and iPad. The general theme is that iOS would be the front-end and mobile enabler for SAP’s back-end financial and analytics applications.

The SAP Cloud Platform SDK announcement landed at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. SAP is looking to speed up the development process for enterprise developers with giving customers native iOS performance.

Among the key points:

• The SAP SDK for iOS is written in the Swift programming language and includes prebuilt user experience components.
• Touch ID, location services and notifications are also included in the library.
• Enterprise features such as offline data synchronization and APIs to SAP S/4HANA are built into iOS via code snippets.
• SAP and Apple have jointly developed the initial training materials on SAP Academy, which will court 2.5 million SAP developers and 13 million Apple developers.
• And SAP is currently building native iOS applications for various industries such as retail and manufacturing.

Separately, SAP highlighted its Internet of Things and connected car integration via a collaboration with Concur, Hertz, and Nokia. SAP’s Vehicle network creates an automated experience for rental cars that provides keyless entry to autos, parking space identification, payment, navigation, and expense management tools for business travelers.