This document discusses mobile app development and backend services. It notes that the average user has 36 apps installed but only uses 1/4 daily. It also discusses that apps often have poor experiences like being slow, crashing, or lacking features. The document then introduces platform as a service (PAAS) options for mobile backends like Azure Mobile Apps. Key features of Azure Mobile Apps are highlighted, including easy APIs, tables, offline sync, authentication, push notifications, and file sync. The document encourages adding a backend to apps for better experiences.

1. #XamarinDevDays

2. Maurizio Moriconi
@bugman79
CTO Mobilesoft
Connected & Disconnected
Apps with Azure Mobile Apps

3. We Apps!
224M
downloads
a day
5
hours on
phone a day
90%time on
apps

4. The average app user has 36 apps installed
on his or her phone.

5. Only 1/4 are used daily:

6. 1/4 of apps are never used!

7. • Slow or laggy experience
• Crashes
• Not intuitive & bad user experience
• Features not as advertised
• Data not available when you need it
Bad App Experiences

8. Always connected?

9. http://opensignal.com/coverage-maps

10. http://opensignal.com/coverage-maps

11. What about a backend?

12. • On average, 54—62% of costs are associated
with infrastructure
• Hosting solutions
• System Administrator
• DB Administrator
• Backup
• Scaling
• Continuous Deployment
Reducing Mobile App Development Costs

13. Platform As A Service (PAAS)

14. Plenty of Options
Amazon Web
Services
Azure Mobile Apps IBM MobileFirst
Oracle Mobile Cloud
Firebase Couchbase
Realm
Parse

15. • Flexible
• Easy Apis/Tables
• App Service!
• C# SDKs available everywhere:
• C# iOS, Android, & Windows with Xamarin
• C# clients, written by C# developers (open source)
• C# backend with ASP.NET
• Node.js for backend!
• Continuous deployment / integration
Why Azure?

16. Shared C# codebase • 100% native API access • High performance
iOS C# UI Windows C# UIAndroid C# UI
Shared C# Mobile C# Server
Linux/Mono
CoreCLRAzure
Shared C# Client/Server
Xamarin Apps + Backend Services

17. Azure Mobile Apps
WindowsAndroid
Chrome
iOS
OSX
Kindle

18. Shared C# codebase • 100% native API access • High performance
iOS C# UI Windows C# UIAndroid C# UI
Shared C# Mobile C# Server
Linux/Mono
CoreCLRAzure
Shared C# Client/Server
Mobile + Server

19. New template on Visual Studio for Mac

20. • Node.js
• Easy authorization (CRUD based on REST
actions)
• Online Editor!
• Integrated on Client SDKs
Easy APIs

21. • Great for simple data storage
• Visual Editor to create tables or create tables
based on the app’s model!!
• CRUD
• Support Authorization/Authentication
• Trigger events on CRUD
(ex. Send a push when an item is added to a table)
Easy Tables

22. • Allow end-users to create and modify data even when there is no
network access
• Sync works across multiple devices
• SQLite Database
• Client SDK available for Xamarin, alternatively use REST API
• Backend written in Node.js
Offline Sync

23. • Rolling your own account infrastructure is difficult and
time-consuming
• Secure your app with prebuilt authentication providers
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google
• Microsoft
• Azure AD
• Anything OAuth 2
Authentication

24. • Easy-to-use, multiplatform scaled push
infrastructure that allows you to send push
notifications almost anywhere.
Push Notifications

25. • Sync files to Azure Storage, just like you did for
structured data.
File Sync

26. Let’s add a backend

27. Connected Services on Visual Studio for Mac

28. Create app from Azure Portal!!!

29. Lunch!
Maurizio
Moriconi
CTO Mobilesoft
maurizio.moriconi@mobilesoft.it @bugman79