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How would I connect an iOS app to SharePoint through Office 365?

1) Connect an iOS app to an Office 365 iOS app on the same device

OR

2) Use Services (Web, REST) to connect to Office 365

This is a general question and I would like to get a high level picture of how iOS connects to SharePoint through Office 365. I've found that it has already been done in another app.

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If you're building the software on a non-Microsoft platform, you may be able to use the dll for the Client Object Model via Mono (or an equivalent?), but I wouldn't necessarily trust it to be stable. I know Mono works best with dlls compiled through Mono.

SharePoint offers a variety of web services to interface with, where you can perform a number of common tasks. Just be aware of the restrictions of Office 365, as you have less privilege on the cloud platform, and a significant amount of functionality is restricted. Office 365 is fairly locked down.

To get started with using the SharePoint web services, check out MSDN's page "SharePoint 2010 Web Services"

Additionally, if you'd like to go down the Client Object Model path, here is the MSDN page: SharePoint 2010 Client Object Model

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  • Thank you @rjcup3 ! Is it true that I can connect to SharePoint without Office 365 (direct calls to web-services from an iOS app)? What benefits provide Office 365 in comparison to direct calls?
    – surlac
    Sep 20, 2012 at 14:27
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    Office 365 is SharePoint hosted by Microsoft. You aren't making calls to SharePoint through Office 365, you're making calls to Office 365 and that's it. It doesn't go anywhere after that.
    – RJ Cuthbertson
    Sep 20, 2012 at 14:29
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    Both Office 365 and SharePoint expose web services. The same code can interface with both, but you can do more with in house hosted SharePoint versus cloud hosted Office 365.
    – RJ Cuthbertson
    Sep 20, 2012 at 14:30
  • Many thanks @rjcup3 ! What is the right way to communicate with Office 365: web-service calls or some Microsoft lib for iOS (that will handle the communication)?
    – surlac
    Sep 20, 2012 at 14:58
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    The "right" way is a matter of perspective on your situation. There is no one "right" way. Personally, I would use the web services here because I wouldn't trust Windows libraries to function appropriately on iOS.
    – RJ Cuthbertson
    Sep 20, 2012 at 15:05

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