Cloudify your Windows 8 and iOS apps with Windows Azure Mobile Services

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Windows Azure Mobile ServicesWith the introduction of apps and application stores, the process of building, selling and distributing software has been truly democratized.  But what if your application becomes a top hit and is being downloaded and used by millions of users?  How do you make sure that your backend services scales dynamically with this unpredictable demand?

Windows Azure Mobile Services makes it incredibly easy to connect a scalable cloud backend to your client and mobile applications.  It allows you to easily store structured data in the cloud that can span both devices and users, integrate it with user authentication, as well as send out updates to clients via push notifications.

 

A couple of weeks ago we announced Windows Azure Mobile Services with support for Windows 8 apps. This week we delivered initial support for connecting iOS based devices (including iPhones and iPads) to Windows Azure Mobile Services.  We’ll also be adding support to enable these same scenarios for Windows Phone, and Android devices soon.

 

In addition, we have also released the following great improvements to Windows Azure Mobile Services:

  • Facebook, Twitter and Google authentication support
  • Sending emails from your Mobile Service, in partnership with SendGrid
  • Sending SMS messages from your Mobile Service, in partnership with Twilio
  • Support for connecting to Azure Storage and Azure Service Bus

 

Read this getting started tutorial to walkthrough how you can build (in less than 5 minutes) a simple iOS “Todo List” app that stores data in Windows Azure.  Then follow the below tutorials to explore how to use the iOS client libraries to store data and authenticate users.

 

image If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using Mobile Services today. Visit the Windows Azure Mobile Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with Mobile Services.

 

 

For more information about building applications on Windows and an overview of our local activities, visit the Apps on Windows landing page.