iOS developer essentials: four Backend service tools

this article reprinted to http://mobile.51cto.com/iphone-411917.htmfor developers, connecting back-end data may be a particularly painful thing. But back-end services can help developers build mobile applications faster, without sacrificing back-end functionality.

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Back-end services accelerate the development of mobile applications, improve scalability, and reduce developer demand for server-side coding. For developers, connecting back-end data to the front-end may be a particularly painful thing to do. But back-end services can help developers build mobile apps faster, and it also reduces the cost of mobile app development. To this end, this article shares 4 flexible and secure back-end service tools for a wide range of iOS developers.

1. Helios

Helios is a scalable, open-source mobile app backend framework. It provides functions such as backend services, data synchronization, user account message push, passbook, etc. necessary for iOS applications. It enables developers to configure applications and server connections in a short time, seamlessly integrating mobile applications and the provided backend services.

Key Features:

• Data synchronization: Read, write, and even automatically generate core data models that outperform traditional rest WebService.
• Push notifications: Supports device-side registration, which enables notifications to be sent to specific devices through a powerful management interface.
• In-app billing: Track and verify transaction behavior in the payment process.
• Passbook: Support all required Passbook WebService, including registration, update, notification and other functions.
• Log and analyze: Powerful behavioral capture and trending capabilities.

2. Windows Azure Mobile Services

Developers can use the Azure Mobile service platform to store data on cloud servers, and also to authenticate users and send push notifications to clients. Like other cloud computing backend services solutions, the Azure Mobile services platform enables developers to focus on front-end development. In the Azure Mobile services platform, the corresponding data for the developer application will be saved in the Windows Azure Cloud computing platform and work in conjunction with the SQL database inside. This way, developers can safely check the data without writing or deploying specific code.

In addition, the Azure Mobile Services platform supports list creation, data browsing, guided setup, and access control. When developers use the Azure mobile service platform, they can integrate user authentication into the app and send push notifications to the client.

3. Urban Airship

Urban Airship is a platform for delivering push services. Developers can use a unified API to complete the push development of iOS, Android and BlackBerry three platforms. In addition to the basic push service, Urban airship also offers rich push: Enables Push information to be available with multimedia information such as HTML, video, audio, and more. In addition, Urban airship also provides IAP services for iOS and Android to help developers deal with issues such as content storage and secure payment.

In addition, Urban airship provides a management background. The developer can not only use the information editing interface to send push, but also monitor the transmission of the push message, and observe whether the user has generated statistics such as interaction.

4. Parse

Parse is a complete iOS, Android back-end support platform. Parse helps developers who are unfamiliar with Terminal Server code to work with databases, user authorizations, and so on. Developers simply drag the parse SDK to a smart disk device, and with just a few lines of code, they can use features such as cell phone data storage, push notifications, and user management. In addition, Prase is able to manage the background development of mobile applications. With the iOS and Android SDK provided by parse, developers can store data objects in the cloud, send push notifications, and more. For the user registration and login capabilities required for most applications, parse not only provides dedicated back-end support, but also provides a convenient interface for integrating Twitter and Facebook.

Key Features:

• Data storage: The Parse SDK Development Kit is designed to provide an easy-to-use ORM data store for iOS and Android, developer Objective-c (IOS) or Java (Android) code, and the Parse SDK development package, which will pass the parse platform , working hard around sending data and receiving data.
• Push notifications: Parse provides a fairly simple push notification scheme that helps developers easily send notifications to app users via a consistent and easy-to-use interface.

iOS developer essentials: four Backend service tools