Mobile Backend Apps and APIs meetup London overview of BaaS APIs and discussion with developers

An overview of BaaS and cloud APIs

Taras Filatov, CEO and founder of @QuickBlox [email protected]

Mobile Backend – Apps and APIs First Meetup

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

Outline

Age of Cloud and Socially enabled apps Mobile 2.0?

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

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)

Evolution of technical platform

1.  SDK & HTML5 2. Cloud & 3rd party APIs (PaaS / BaaS solutions)

Popular APIs – HighScores / Leaderboards

hTp://www.scoreloop.com/

hTp://www.apple.com/ game-‐center/

hTp://openfeint.com/

Popular APIs - Location

hTp://simplegeo.com/

hTp://www.arcgis.com/home/

www.skyhookwireless.com/localfaves/

developer.pearson.com/apis

Popular APIs – Advertising and Monetisation

hTp://www.inmobi.com/

www.google.com/ads/admob/

hTp://www.smaato.com/

hTp://adfonic.com/

Popular APIs – Push Notifications

hTp://urbanairship.com/

BaaS solutions – “Do everything”

hTp://www.stackmob.com/

hTp://quickblox.com hTps://www.parse.com/

•  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)

Hardware plaDorms Which plaDorms are covered

•  Most cover iOS, Android and Web •  No code samples coverage for everything •  Small BlackBerry / Windows Phone coverage

Name iOS Android Web Windows Phone

Blackberry

CocoaFish + + + -‐ -‐

Kinvey + + + -‐ -‐

Parse + + + -‐ -‐

Pusher -‐ -‐ + -‐ -‐

Urbain Airship + + -‐ -‐ +

QuickBlox + + + + -‐

PlaDorms

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)

Data Structure and Schemas Universal VS Custom

Pre-‐defined Client-‐defined with Some pre-‐defined modules

•  Urban Airship •  Pusher •  Kinvey •  QuickBlox

•  StackMob (start making calls or set up

strict CRUD schemas) •  Parse (data storage is client defined

Different data structure approaches

Would you prefer: a)  strict data schema, turnkey soluHon, more detailed and

extensive for specific use cases

b)  construct your own schema

c)  both

?

Code samples and SDK API features available

Code samples and SDKs

hTp://quickblox.com/developers/

How important are SDKs and code samples?

Are you comfortable to work directly with REST API ?

Admin panel Techy VS Business oriented

Developer oriented: StackMob

OK: Parse console

Hybrid: QuickBlox

What is important in the admin panel?

Do you want it more techy / developer oriented? Will you give access to your customers?

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

Paid / Freemium Community / ad supported

Parse UrbanAirship StackMob Kinvey QuickBlox CocoaFish CloudMine

GREE (OpenFeint) Scoreloop

Paid vs Ad supported

OpenFeint / Scoreloop way

OpenFeint ScoreLoop

Custom UI way

iCombat

Quiz Climber

Star RaYngs

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

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

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!

Pusher: Web Chat and Web Push Notifications

RealYme Chat Widget that lets you to quickly add chat into your applicaYons.

simple JS library that allows you to quickly add realYme noYficaYons into your applicaYons.

Parse and StackMob: custom data models

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

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

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) •  a\achments – users send photos, videos, locaYon – securely stored and retrieved from the cloud

Modules:

Chat Messages

+ +

Users

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

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/

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?

www.programmableweb.com/apis/directory/

Lots of APIs

Executive Summary

Продажи

[email protected]

@tarasfilatov

Discussion

@quickblox

http://quickblox.com