The first Mobile Backend Apps and APIs meetup has taken place in London on 16th of May 2012. Taras Filatov, founder and CEO of QuickBlox has kicked off the event in an open discussion format giving a quick overview of existing market and asking questions about important aspects of mobile backends. Developers present in the audience have shared their opinions and this has launched a very interesting discussion from which both developers and API providers could take something. Dan Murphy from Pearson and Terence Eden from InMobi have continued the discussion giving further introspective into evolution of apps and APIs and providing details about their APIs. The official meetup page: http://www.meetup.com/Mobile-Backend-Apps-and-APIs/events/49006492/

1. Mobile
Backend
–
Apps
and
APIs
First
Meetup
An
overview
of
BaaS
and
cloud
APIs
Taras Filatov, CEO and founder of @QuickBlox
taras@quickblox.com

2. Outline
1. Intro:
age
of
Cloud
and
Socially
Enabled
apps
2.
PlaDorms
3.
Data
structure
4.
Code
samples
and
SDKs
5.
Admin
panel
6.
Pricing
/
revenue
model
7.
Unique
/
strong
features

3. Age
of
Cloud
and
Socially
enabled
apps
Mobile
2.0?

4. Evolution of the interface
1. Command line UI
2. GUI
3. Touch UI

5. Evolution of Social
1. Deeper OR creative social
APIs Integration (Social
Graph, Frictionless sharing
etc)
2. Crowd-sourcing
3. User base united
(single sign-on,
cross-platform
communication)

6. Evolution of technical platform
1. SDK & HTML5
2. Cloud & 3rd party APIs (PaaS / BaaS solutions)

7. Popular APIs – HighScores / Leaderboards
hTp://www.scoreloop.com/
hTp://www.apple.com/
game-­‐center/
hTp://openfeint.com/

8. Popular APIs - Location
hTp://simplegeo.com/
developer.pearson.com/apis
www.skyhookwireless.com/ hTp://www.arcgis.com/
localfaves/
home/

9. Popular APIs – Advertising and Monetisation
www.google.com/ads/ hTp://www.inmobi.com/
admob/
hTp://www.smaato.com/
hTp://adfonic.com/

10. Popular APIs – Push Notifications
hTp://urbanairship.com/

11. BaaS solutions – “Do everything”
hTp://www.stackmob.com/
hTp://quickblox.com
hTps://www.parse.com/

12. • Unite
users
Single
Sign
On,
Facebook
/
TwiTer
integraYon
• Engage
Users
can
Chat,
Comment,
Play
• Context
Suggest
local
or
relevant
data
–
use
GeoLocaYon,
Foursquare
integraYon
• Crowd
Source
Users
create
content,
can
view
and
Rate
the
content
of
each
other)

13. Hardware
plaDorms
Which
plaDorms
are
covered

14. PlaDorms
Name
iOS
Android
Web
Windows
Blackberry
Phone
CocoaFish
+
+
+
-­‐
-­‐
Kinvey
+
+
+
-­‐
-­‐
Parse
+
+
+
-­‐
-­‐
Pusher
-­‐
-­‐
+
-­‐
-­‐
Urbain
Airship
+
+
-­‐
-­‐
+
QuickBlox
+
+
+
+
-­‐
• Most
cover
iOS,
Android
and
Web
• No
code
samples
coverage
for
everything
• Small
BlackBerry
/
Windows
Phone
coverage

15.
How
important
is
mulH
plaIorm
for
you?
Which
plaIorms
do
you
build
apps
for?
Do
you
think
iOS,
Android
and
Web
is
enough?
(or
shall
Windows
Phone,
BlackBerry,
Bada
etc
be
covered
too)

16. Data
Structure
and
Schemas
Universal
VS
Custom

17. Different data structure approaches
Pre-­‐defined
Client-­‐defined
with
Some
pre-­‐defined
modules
• Urban
Airship
• StackMob
(start
making
calls
or
set
up
• Pusher
strict
CRUD
schemas)
• Kinvey
• Parse
(data
storage
is
client
defined
• QuickBlox

18.
Would
you
prefer:
a) strict
data
schema,
turnkey
soluHon,
more
detailed
and
extensive
for
specific
use
cases
b) construct
your
own
schema
c) both
?

19. Code
samples
and
SDK
API
features
available

20. Code samples and SDKs
hTp://quickblox.com/developers/

21.
How
important
are
SDKs
and
code
samples?
Are
you
comfortable
to
work
directly
with
REST
API
?

22. Admin
panel
Techy
VS
Business
oriented

23. Developer oriented: StackMob

24. OK: Parse console

25. Hybrid: QuickBlox

26.
What
is
important
in
the
admin
panel?
Do
you
want
it
more
techy
/
developer
oriented?
Will
you
give
access
to
your
customers?

27. Pricing
/
Revenue
models
Paid
VS
Ad
supported
(community
based)

28. Paid
vs
Ad
supported
Paid
/
Freemium
Community
/
ad
supported
Parse
GREE
(OpenFeint)
UrbanAirship
Scoreloop
StackMob
Kinvey
QuickBlox
CocoaFish
CloudMine

29. OpenFeint
/
Scoreloop
way
OpenFeint
ScoreLoop

30. Custom
UI
way
iCombat
Quiz
Climber
Star
RaYngs

31.
How
important
is
pricing?
Paid
and
100%
custom
UI
vs
Ad
supported
/
own
community?
Transparency?

32. Unique
/
Strong
features
Features
and
technologies
that
are
unique
to
each
plaDorm

33. StackMob: host your HTML apps
Host
your
own
HTML5
apps
• Hosted
HTML5,
don't
worry
about
where
to
host
your
applicaYons
• Deep
integraYon
with
GitHub
• Build
service
for
creaYng
naYve
applicaYons
for
HTML5
coming
soon!
Build
your
applicaYon
end-­‐to-­‐end
on
StackMob.
The
hosted
HTML5
soluYon
allows
you
to
build
robust,
data
driven
applicaYons
hosted
by
StackMob
for
no
addiYonal
cost!

34. Pusher: Web Chat and Web Push Notifications
simple
JS
library
that
allows
you
to
quickly
RealYme
Chat
Widget
that
lets
you
to
add
realYme
noYficaYons
into
your
quickly
add
chat
into
your
applicaYons.
applicaYons.

35. Parse and StackMob: custom data models
Universal
/
flexible
data
scheme
(both
Parse
and
StackMob:
start
making
calls
/
strict
CRUD,
custom
server
code)

36. Urban Airship: ideal push notifications
• Push
NoYficaYons
for
iOS,
Blackberry,
Android
(no
Web
/
Windows
Phone
though)
• Auto
extracYon
of
push
cerYficate
data
from
keychain
• Good
visual
stats

37. QuickBlox: Chat with Attachments and Push Notifications
• Front-­‐end
funcYonality:
•
5,000
concurrent
chat
sessions
•
150,000
daily
push
noYficaYons
(offline
users
receiving
new
chat
messages)
•
aachments
–
users
send
photos,
videos,
locaYon
–
securely
stored
and
retrieved
from
the
cloud
Modules:
+
+
Chat
Messages
Users

38. QuickBlox: Location Chat
Front-­‐end
funcYonality:
Celebrity’s
fans
can
see
each
other
on
Google
map
and
chat
Technology:
•
LocaYon
based
Chat
•
AuthorizaYon
via
Facebook
Modules:
+
+
Location
Chat
Facebook

39. QuickBlox: Augmented Reality Chat
Front-­‐end
funcYonality:
Users
can
see
other
users/friends
in
AR
world
–
looking
around
through
their
camera
Technology:
•
LocaYon
based
Chat
•
Augmented
Reality
view
•
AuthorizaYon
via
Facebook
Modules:
+
+
Location
Chat
Augmented
Reality
hTp://quickblox.com/augmented-­‐reality-­‐chat-­‐for-­‐mobile-­‐applicaYons/

40.
Will
you
choose
an
API
because
of
their
strong
/
unique
features?
Would
you
prefer
a
plaIorm
less
powerful
in
specific
areas
but
covering
a
broader
funcHonality
so
that
you
can
sHck
to
one?
Or
are
you
happy
to
juggle
APIs
and
use
whichever
fits
best
in
your
project?

41. Lots of APIs
www.programmableweb.com/apis/directory/

42. Executive Summary
Discussion
taras@quickblox.com
Продажи
@tarasfilatov
@quickblox
http://quickblox.com