There are two divergent trends happening in mobile development right now. The most common one is the mobile-first approach strategy. You construct a landing page website and then build a product in iOS, if targeting the U.S. market, or Android, if targeting the European market. Then, you push a single version and develop for other markets down the line.
The other trend is the API-first approach, in which the underlying construct — the application programming interface (API) — is built first. This strategy allows the website and apps on various platforms to be built on top of the same basic conditions. If your sole target audience is iOS users, perhaps a mobile-first strategy works for you. However, the downside is this hinders quick development for future audiences, including Windows, BlackBerry, Android, and a web-app for your non-mobile users.
The API-first solution allows app developers to quickly reach subscribers on many different devices. With this strategy, you can build, deploy and manage the whole mobile lifecycle from one source using an API Mobile Backend as a Service (BaaS). Perhaps most importantly, BaaS allows you to save time and money while scaling your business rapidly. And, according to Markets and Markets market research firm, BaaS will be a $7.7 billion market by 2017, so we see BaaS as a safe bet.
What is Backend as a Service?
Also known as Mobile Backend as a Service, BaaS or MBaaS, Backend as a Service is a way for developers to link to back-end cloud-based storage, most often for push notifications, data storage, file storage, messaging queues, monitoring and configuration, and social integration. BaaS as an alternative to traditional development, bringing more services to your customers in a quick mobile format.
Tim Anglade, from Apigee, a corporate retail-specialized API company, prefers API backend as a term “because it really exemplifies API as the center of your architecture and center of the backend.” Anglade sees API backend as the “key to helping companies deliver their mobile products in time and budget.” BaaS is helpful when delivering your first mobile app, and becomes key when delivering ten or twelve apps a year.
How API Backends Are Designed for Today’s Apps
An API backend unifies many of the development steps that you would typically repeat for various OS and mobile devices, with one block of functionality to remodel on top of. BaaS is built for the world we live in where the quantity and complexity of apps grows exponentially year after year. Anglade believes this is key for helping smaller developers “getting more done faster,” leaving more time to focus on an app’s core differentiating value and user experience.
Anglade’s condensed API backend stack
“In essence, if you were starting fresh today to reinvent architecture for mobile – instead of dealing with your architecture for mobile – this is what it’d look like, right?” said Anglade, as he pointed to the condensed MBaaS stack. This also makes it simpler for app developers, as these customers only need to pair a less complex, smaller Software Development Kit (SDK) with the API.
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