Speed up iOS development with Google Cloud Platform
By Stuart Reavley, Product Manager, Google Cloud Platform
Cross-posted with the Google
Cloud Platform Blog
Mobile backends enable you to create connected mobile apps without writing server-side code.
Today we are simplifying server-side development for iOS developers with
Mobile Backend Starter for
iOS. With our Mobile Backend and Objective-C client libraries you can:
- Store data in the cloud and share between users
- Send device-to-device push notifications
- Use continuous queries to notify devices of data changes
- Authenticate users using Google Accounts
Mobile developer
Ryan
Harter used Mobile Backend Starter to grow his
Hashnote
app usage from 3,000 users to 20,000:
“Mobile Backend Starter allowed me to focus on the Android app, while ensuring that I
had an efficient backend. Most importantly, the backend isn't a black box that's intended to
be the be all and end all, keeping me locked in. I was able to extend the backend to include
Hashnote specific logic, while learning how Google implemented the initial feature set from
the open source code.”
The Mobile Backend Starter is a
Google App Engine application, so
you can support hundreds of concurrent users at
no
charge. This source code for the
entire app, both the backend as well as the Android and iOS clients, is available on Github,
so you are free to explore and add specific customizations if you want.
Getting Started
You can try out the Mobile Backend Starter on an iPhone or iPad in just a few steps (
further details
here):
1.
Provision your
backend on App Engine
2. Download the
iOS client zip
file (or clone from
GitHub
repository)
3. Run the sample on a physical device (note: the sample does not run on the iOS
simulator)
You use our framework classes to interact with the deployed backend as if it was local to the
device. We incorporated our
recent
work to deliver scalable, reliable push notifications to thousands of iOS devices
via the Apple Push Notification Service.
The same set of features exists for both Android and iOS, and the backend manages the platform
specifics such as using
Google Cloud Messaging
for Android and APNS for iOS devices. You can follow
these instructions
to set up the backend for Android, or
watch our Google I/O
session.
Stuart Reavley’s goal is to enhance Google Cloud Platform for mobile. Outside work
he enjoys traveling with his wife, Jen.
Posted by Scott Knaster,
Editor
