Pi Apps Platform for Developers Beta

Actions:

• Submit Developer Application Form
• Visit Pi Apps Platform for Developers
• Visit Pi SDK and Documentation
• Test your own app in Pi Developer Sandbox on desktop only

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We’re happy to launch the Pi Apps Platform for developers all over the world as a beta, including 1) the first version of Pi SDK and its documentation and 2) a Pi Apps Platform Sandbox for developers to test and visualize their apps. This release, as promised in our Pi Phase 2 strategy to be launched by the end of Q2 2020, will enable developers to start building applications that integrate the Pi currency and to get technically ready to be deployable on the Pi Apps Platform accessible by millions of Pioneers around the globe. It will decentralize the development of Pi’s ecosystem and leverage the power of our global community to achieve the breadth and scale of traditional economies, where real value and utilities are created.

One of the core principles at Pi is to create simple user experience through progressive decentralization, which also applies to how we facilitate developers to build Pi Apps. This is the main reason for adopting industry standard technologies, such as JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and iframes, for developers to integrate with Pi, so that they can focus more on building awesome applications rather than getting complex technologies to work. Pi 3rd-party apps will initially be hitting Pi’s backend so that they can iterate on their app designs and establish their use cases and audiences (user bases). Once they are ready and the blockchain becomes live, their backend will be able to adapt to hit the Pi Testnet or Mainnet directly, eventually achieving decentralization. This ensures the development of utility and decentralization in parallel rather than in sequence, just like Pi Network itself.

Technically, the Pi SDK allows developers to develop their applications in whichever programming language they prefer in their backend and integrate with the Pi Platform interface through Javascript in the frontend. Today’s SDK version will include two major functionalities for developers: 1) authenticate a Pioneer and 2) request a payment from Pioneers.

For authenticating a Pioneer, at the moment, a Pioneer will be able to use a third-party app on the Pi Platform only when they consent to share their Pi username with a specific Pi 3rd-party app. The reason is because the Pi Platform requires the authentication of the Pioneer’s Pi identity in order to process any Pi transfer between the 3rd-party app and the Pioneer. In the future, we will add a method for previewing apps without authenticating first. Requesting payments from Pioneers is the main feature of this version of the Pi SDK. It may appear to be a simple interface, but it’s significant because it means developers can get paid in Pi by serving various applications to Pioneers, and KYC’ed Pioneers can spend their Pi in different applications. This is the backbone of the Pi Apps Platform where Pi becomes a medium of exchange for value, such as goods and services. Based on the thorough analysis of the in-app transfer pilot we published last quarter, we first focus on facilitating applications that increase Pioneers’ Pi spends, because they create demands for Pi in our ecosystem. Later SDK versions will include endpoints that allow more diverse ways of Pi transfers on the platform, e.g. from an app to a Pioneer, and endpoints that improve the user experience, such as to send push notifications, create chat channels, or allow users to invite their friends to join a Pi app.

The visualization of such 3rd-party apps are made available through a Demo app inside the Pi Developer Sandbox. In addition to our demo app, developers can test and visualize their own apps by connecting with the Sandbox. They can test apps both running on their local computers or being hosted on external web servers. Beware that all data about the text users in the Sandbox are pseudo and have no connection with real Pioneers’ data in the production environment of Pi Network. Registering a test app in the Sandbox does NOT constitute an application for running your app on production.

We welcome developers all over the world to build their applications on Pi, whether they are already Pioneers, developers of decentralized applications on other blockchain platforms, or developers who haven’t had experience in the decentralized world yet. Developers can submit their applications through the form here. We’ll make a further announcement on the selection criteria and process for third-party apps in the future. By deploying on the Pi Apps Platform, developers will not only help build the ecosystem of Pi Network in the process of value creation, but also be able to tap into the large and diverse Pi community globally and have a simple integration into the decentralized economy that will be an inevitable part of our future world.