This week Microsoft announced adding several new features to improve their Mobile Services that allow developers to easily connect their client and mobile applications to the cloud backend. A preview of Windows Azure Mobile Services was first released in August when it was made available for those running on Windows 8.
Since then, Microsoft worked on improving these services to make them more widely available. The most notable innovation introduced this week is iOS support that expands the number of platforms on which developers can work. As Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President, stated in the blog post, Microsoft Windows Azure Mobile Services will from now on include the following:
- iOS support – enabling you to connect iPhone and iPad apps to Mobile Services
- Facebook, Twitter, and Google authentication support with Mobile Services
- Blob, Table, Queue, and Service Bus support from within your Mobile Service
- Sending emails from your Mobile Service (in partnership with SendGrid)
- Sending SMS messages from your Mobile Service (in partnership with Twilio)
- Ability to deploy mobile services in the West US region
The idea behind Windows Azure is to help developers build, deploy and manage applications in the Microsoft’s cloud data centers. Their Mobile Services are another step towards enhancing collaboration using cloud.
The new features are live in production and available to use immediately for users with Windows Azure account in the US East region. Guthrie explains that they are working on expanding the services across all Windows Azure regions.
To further help developers, Microsoft team will be working on new features and Guthrie says that we should expect even more announcements this week. Among the features that are to be introduced there will be .NET 4.5 support for Windows Azure Web Sites.
