In recent years, customer experiences and digital technologies have evolved rapidly. We have new patterns and approaches that support seamless and enhanced digital experiences.
This has made developers appreciate server and client integration more than ever. However, this transformation would not have been possible without Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
APIs are programming interfaces that allow applications to communicate and share information. They dictate how data is shared, what conventions are used, and what data formats are shared.
Why should you use mobile app APIs?
Even if a mobile app API is separate from all of your application’s software, the application is still functional. For example, if you are a travel agency, you may want to display weather conditions in your application and need to use the right mobile application development API to do so.
Or you have the option to create your own weather forecast function for your website. However, you can also use one of the top weather API picks, which have better features and are even more reliable.
If you want your website visitors to create an account before accessing your services, you can build a login functionality from scratch or use an API-driven development approach that allows them to sign up via Google, Facebook, or other social Media log platform.
How to build faster and smarter apps with APIs?
Working with APIs can have many benefits, especially if you plan to use the best AI API platforms for smarter apps. The mobile apps API can be helpful for adding more functionality to your apps, making your apps visually appealing and scalable, and more. Here are some other benefits of the API-driven development approach:
1. Enforce precision in your architectural design
If you want a good API response, you need to make sure you’ve reduced your network chatter when working with APIs. You should look at your client-server chatter and make sure you’ve limited it as much as possible.
Also, while building mobile apps using APIs, your API endpoints should not pass all or any data to client applications. Instead, ensure that only the data you need is provided when you need it and for the right screen.
When using the API for mobile apps, it’s important to note that changes to your backend will affect the performance of your APIs as well as the front-end of your applications. All stages of your app development lifecycle require precision to ensure you get the lowest possible latency.
2. Do not use large systems for integration
As more developers understand the importance of APIs and use them when building mobile API apps, they face a new demand for scalability. That means you should break down all the big systems you use into small and independent services to build the mobile API apps.
This is known as microservices. This architecture allows you to troubleshoot your applications easily, deploy quickly, and isolate services from each other. This allows you to create a decoupled application that is easy to use and maintain.
3. Use the right storage and database
If you want to build faster and smarter apps using APIs, you need to make sure you’ve used the right storage and database while choosing the right API for mobile application development. While the database type may not matter very much, make sure you’ve avoided sequential UUIDs as much as possible.
Instead, you should randomly generate your UUIDs. This is important to ensure your resources are protected as IDs cannot be easily predicted. You can consider relational databases like MySQL or MariaDB.
If you want a NoSQL database, MongoDB database might be the best option for you. You may also find yourself in a situation where you need a hybrid database. At the end of the day, when building your applications with APIs, make sure the database you’re using doesn’t complicate things.
4. Reduce API calls and network chatter
For example, if you’re building an Android app with API, you’ll need to make different service calls for each transaction to complete successfully. This is a challenge for most developers, even the best mobile app development companies.
Since you are planning to build mobile apps using APIs including the frontend, you must try as much as possible to have at most one API call on each screen. If you have a lot of service calls, you limit the responsiveness of your application.
This can affect the battery life of your users’ devices. You can also create better endpoints for your APIs or use the device’s local cache. This improves the user experience and ensures that API calls don’t impact the performance of your applications.
5. Safety is important
Security is one of the most important things to implement, especially for developers who build their applications using third-party APIs. This is because APIs are subject to privacy controls, secret keys, and access control mechanisms used to keep data and backend systems secure.
Their API-driven development can result in the app asking users for personal information. This information is shared via APIs. Advances in technology have also led to an increase in cybercriminal activities that may leak users’ personal information.
You therefore need to ensure that you have implemented the correct API security protocols. You can use security standards such as OAuth2, OpenID Connect and TLS, among others. Also, always improve the security of your applications by making sure you’ve been using the latest versions of your APIs.
Wrap up
It’s hard to find an application these days that wasn’t built using APIs. APIs are useful for mobile apps, especially when competition in the target user base is intense. In such situations, APIs can reward developers with a competitive advantage over alternatives. However, this does not mean that all applications built using APIs are intelligent and guaranteed to reward developers with growth.
You must follow the guidelines above to build smart apps faster using APIs. Additionally, you must also consider a calculated approach to building the app to ensure that your app will grow in terms of popularity and demand once it is released in the real world.
She is an avid writer on technology and trending mobile apps. When she’s not busy updating you on the tech world, she spends time reading books and playing the guitar.
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