NucliOS is a toolset used to create high performance native applications for iPad and iPhone and includes chart and grid controls. Developed by Infragistics, the chart control includes support for motion framework which allows you to create smooth playback of changes in data with the help of highly-engaging visualizations and fluid animations.
With the help of grid control, you will be able to quickly bind arrays to the grid and populate with data. This will enable end users to easily manipulate the data and chose a flexible layout option to present the data exactly as it is needed. Moreover, the grid control has the ability to populate large volumes of data with a powerful API which is familiar to all iOS developers.
The toolset includes different chart types ranging from scientific, financial, trendlines and much more with the ability to render thousands of data points capable of millisecond updates. Moreover, you can easily take advantage of data source helper to establish connectivity to various data sources and populate the chart with data based on the values supplied in the array which is fed to the helper.
In an exclusive interview to InfoQ, Nick Landry, Senior Product Manager, Infragistics outlined the core features of NucliOS and also disclosed its future roadmap.
InfoQ: How is NucliOS different from other products?
NucliOS offers true native controls to iOS developers. Many of our competitors push for mobile development using PhoneGap, a solution that wraps HTML5 applications into a native shell app which can be deployed to a mobile app store.
PhoneGap based solutions are proven to suffer from performance issues, user interface consistency problems across platforms, and fail to deliver the power and smoothness of native mobile solutions. Such solutions can also not exploit the exclusive features of each mobile platform, only native apps can.
PhoneGap is an open-source project owned by Adobe and based on the Apache Cordova project. Note that if a customer is interested in PhoneGap based solutions for cross-platform mobile development, Infragistics does support PhoneGap via HTML5 & JQuery (or jQuery Mobile) using Ignite UI.
NucliOS is a truly superior product compared to the native iOS controls available as Open Source. Some of the key differentiators include:
- Chart: More iOS chart types (20+ chart types); Composite charting; Advanced built-in chart data features like financial indicators, trend lines, symbol markers, etc.; Advanced built-in chart display features like multiple axes, multiple legends, etc.; Support for customizable themes to match any application look & feel and company brand, and much more.
- Grid: Advanced built-in grid data features like sorting, filtering, grouping, etc.; Advanced built-in grid manipulation features like row & cell reordering, row & cell insertion & deletion, pull-to-refresh, shortcut bar, etc.; Powerful styling options to use the grid as a UI layout tool for advanced scenarios like scrolling lists, photo albums, etc
- Other Differentiators:
- Support for Data Binding & a Data Source Helper to make it easier to bind data arrays to the grid and chart.
- Professional APIs: Infragistics has been designing and building reusable controls for over 20 years. Our APIs are carefully crafted with forward thinking in mind and based on best practices, unlike open source APIs which are often designed on the fly and consistently broken between releases.
- Performance: Our controls are faster than any other similar controls, native iOS or web-based.
- Price: We deliver the best value for the most competitive price, and the best performance across the board.
- Community, Standard or Premium support options, unlike Open Source controls which offer no formal support programs.
- Professional documentation for each control, API and feature, unlike Open Source controls which usually offer no formal docs and only provide outdated readme files and poorly commented source code.
- Commercial license, complete with accountability. Many companies do not allow the use of open source software due to the liability risks. NucliOS is a fully supported commercial product that companies can trust, from an established vendor that has been in business longer than any other controls vendor in the market (20+ years).
InfoQ: Does Infragistics have any plans to add more controls to NucliOS toolset? If yes can you disclose few controls which will be included with future releases.
We cannot commit to any specific public roadmap at this point, but our goal is to increase the level of parity across our XAML and iOS controls, especially around data visualization, which includes gauges, pie charts, maps and more.
NucliOS is a first-class citizen at Infragistics and we have a full team working on more controls as well as new features in the existing grid & chart controls.
InfoQ: Do you see the future for NucliOS is bright especially when Microsoft is making attempts to add more apps to their Windows Phone Store?
The response to NucliOS has been phenomenal. Corporations have been waiting for a long time for a professional component vendor to embrace the iOS market.
Unlike the desktop market, the mobile world is heavily fragmented and no mobile platform is projected to dominate in the same way that Windows has on the desktop. Even as Windows Phone and Windows RT rise in popularity, all 3 mobile platforms need to be supported via native controls.
Apple is expected to maintain at least a 17% smartphone market share through 2016, and iOS still dominates in terms of app revenue with a 65% share of the global application store market. On the tablet side, Apple has a solid lead with over 60% of the tablet market.
iOS is still the #1 target for mobile developers and NucliOS is here to support these developers.
