The goal of this mini-series was to create a backend hosted in Windows Azure Websites and connect to it from both Android and iOS. More so, I wanted to host something that didn’t require .NET technologies to work. I wanted to do this because, if you’re an iOS developer you are definitely on OSX. Many Android developers are using OSX for their primary development machine as well. This means that if you are forced to use a .NET backend, your hands are somewhat tied since you can’t run Visual Studio on OSX. For that reason, I chose to create a PHP website with a minimal web user interface and all of the functionality exposed via web services. The site and services were relatively simple and exposed the ability to shorten URLs (just like tinyurl.com).
As of now, we’ve successfully deployed this PHP website to Windows Azure WebSites as well as created clients for both iOS and Android. You can see each article in this mini-series here:
Part 1: Creating a site in Windows Azure Websites and uploading our PHP site
Part 2: A deep dive into the PHP code for a URL Shortening Service
Part 3: Starting the iOS Client: Displaying a list of shortened URLs
Part 4: Continuing the iOS Client: Viewing the details of a shortened URL
Part 5: Finishing the iOS Client: Giving users the ability to insert new shortened URLs
Part 6: Starting the Android Client: Displaying a list of shortened URLs
Part 7: Continuing the Android Client: Viewing the details of a shortened URL
Part 8: Finishing the Android Client: Giving users the ability to insert new shortened URLs
This demo was originally built for a Windows Azure DevCamp in London, England which was organized and hosted by the United Kingdom Windows Azure User Group. They did a great job and it was really fun to present there. You can grab the deck from my Android presentation here and my iOS presentation here. These presentations are mostly the same as the functionality used prior to Windows Azure Websites was (mostly) the same for both Android and iOS. Plus what I’ve done so far is about the same for both. What’s important is that we’ve just started to scratch the surface of Android and iOS connectivity to Windows Azure Websites. Stay tuned as we have some exciting stuff in store.
For a free trial for Windows Azure Websites, sign up here.
