CODEWITHSUNDEEP
android.netioswcf
TJ Mott
TJ Mott

Reputation: 123

What type of web service should I use for consumption by iOS/Android apps?

I have to write some web services to support some mobile apps (Android and iOS) that our company will be producing. Because we use Windows/IIS servers the services will be based on WCF/.NET 4. I'm wondering what format will be the easiest to use on the mobile end. I know there's JSON, SOAP, and others, I just don't know which has the best support within a mobile environment. Suggestions?

I intend to have a single set of WCF services which are consumed by both mobile platforms.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 525

Answers (4)

SliverNinja - MSFT
SliverNinja - MSFT

Reputation: 31641

Since you're using the .NET-platform on the server, WCF supports sending/receiving XML or JSON messages pretty easily using WebHttpBindings and WebServiceHostFactory to build RESTful services.

For the client platforms - you just need an HTTP Client capable of sending JSON or XML formatted messages to a URL and retrieving a response. There are many libraries that will make this easier to manage, but it depends on the complexities involved in your service.

I would avoid SOAP, but you can easily support it using WCF by adding BasicHttpBinding and a ServiceHostFactory.

Upvotes: 5

Dax
Dax

Reputation: 2185

I use apache Camel CXF (web service) & to parse the data I use JAXB. note: about cxf http://camel.apache.org/cxf.html

Upvotes: -1

Steven Spasbo
Steven Spasbo

Reputation: 646

I used the Slim framework (PHP) to serve JSON via RESTish URLs, and the GSON library to convert the data, it was pretty straight forward in my case.

Upvotes: 0

oriolpons
oriolpons

Reputation: 1883

For my experience, working with JSON is the best way for iOS and Android.

The server... I would use Java (struts or similar).

Hope this helps

Upvotes: 1

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