Those who are part of the development of mobile apps, they can recognize the term API. Application Programming Interfaces or APIs are a set of coding guides or rules that can be included in the mobile application or communicate or connect with other third-party apps.
These coding guidelines provide pre-prepared functionalities to third-party programs, removing the need for developers to build codes in those functions from start.
An API mobile app development is just a set of tools that help programmers create apps and add features to them.
All APIs follow a standard template that is fairly simple to understand. They’re usually built using a REST architecture, which means they employ HTTP requests to manage and update data.
Let’s have a look at the mobile app trends that is increasing the API best practices and development scope and usage.
- As per Statista, in 2023, mobile apps are projected to generate more than 935 billion U.S. dollars in revenues via paid downloads and in-app advertising.
- According to E-Marketer, nearly 90% of mobile internet time is spent in apps.
- The latest report by Statista provides that approximately 66,000 mobile apps were released through the Google Play Store in 2021.
- As we are reading this blog, the number of apps published in the Apple store is around 33.4k per month.
Now that we have known and read about what API development is and how it works, let’s know some of the best APIs for mobile apps.
APIs for mobile apps
API for Google maps
For Android, iOS, web, and on demand app development, the Google Maps API is accessible. Developers have long relied on Google Maps as the de-facto geaographical map API. One of the best map APIs you can utilize is Google Maps. It is open to the public, receives regular updates, and contains highly accurate location data. This map API is the most popular among mobile app and web developers.
It’s noted for having a large database of locations and good routing. It offers all of the capabilities of the Google Maps mobile app, including geocoding, navigation, photos, street view, and information about places. In terms of map data accuracy, accessibility, and quality, Google Maps is outstanding.
API for weather apps
Weather API is used to keep track of current weather conditions, estimate the best time for field irrigation, and avoid any profit loss.
Weather APIs give both historical and predict weather data through a simple, well-defined programming interface. The greatest APIs include numerous weather indicators, near-real-time present situation reporting, and decades of global historic weather data.
It is feasible to obtain useful data on weather and climatic conditions at frequent intervals using a reliable weather API. When utilizing the weather API, you can retrieve updates from two or more places at the same time. Some weather APIs even provide data in HTML, XML, and JSON forms, among others.
Firebase
In the global market, firebase is a relatively new API. Firebase provides data synchronization in real-time which is useful for companies that require data collection and analysis of latency. Firebase is also supported by an integrated third-party application. In other words, developers can easily use REST APIs on Firebase without problems.
Amazon AWS
The two main advantageous elements of Amazon AWS API are easy deployment and scalability. Amazon AWS provides a full back-end app solution for developers, including data storage, consumer analytics, content distribution, and even verification tools.
This API resource is very flexible and users can only pay for services that they are utilizing. You can get a lot of economic resources along with managing many other services that are not required for your mobile app development.
Facebook API
It is the most widely used API among mobile app developers. Based on individual privacy and security settings, the API allows applications to use social networks and profile information in order to create applications that are more connected and to publish actions to the news feed section and profile pages.
Users can utilize the API to integrate social data into their apps by using profile, contact list, Page, group, photo, and event data. The RESTful protocol is used by the API, and responses are in JSON format. Facebook’s API is distributed into four sections: Facebook Ad, Facebook Marketing. Facebook Atlas, and Facebook Graph
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is yet another amazing app API from Google. It’s easy to alter the data or fields for your web or mobile application’s analytics using Google’s powerful app API. You may also utilize the Google Analytics API to create separate campaigns for your mobile apps based on demographics and keyword targets.
You may obtain a specific information on how each of the campaigns set by you is performing and what your audience likes the most. The Google Analytics API is responsible for gathering, analyzing, and personalizing data. It’s also a cross-platform app API that can be used in both desktop and web applications.
Appcelerator
Appcelerator is a well-known and sophisticated back-end API that works with both iOS and Android mobile apps. It is a cross-platform app development API that allows developers to develop and design applications on third-party private or virtual private servers in a seamless manner.
Appcelerator also provides all of its users with in-depth data and insights into designing a successful and trending mobile app development. With this sophisticated app API, you can effortlessly keep track of all app updates, observe retention and engagement ratios, and traffic on the app.
What do you think?
So, these are some of the great and necessary app APIs to add when designing a mobile app for your users or business. Now, one of the most important decisions you’ll have to make is whether to construct APIs yourself or buy them from a vendor.
Overall, we may conclude that the universal platform contains a large number of mobile app APIs. You merely need to determine the scope of your mobile app and then select the appropriate API and mode of adding API to meet your business needs.