Question

I am an Android Developer and a noob when it comes to web technologies.

I am planning to create an Android app that stores its data to a database.

I do not want to maintain my own server so I guess I would be resorting to Cloud Services.

The thing is I do not know where to start.

What do I need to be able to access and store data to a cloud database from my Android app?

Where can I get a cloud database preferably for free.

Do I need to use web services?

Any help

Answer 1

There are a few things in this that make me ask questions, as opposed to answer them.

1. Do you mean for your application to be always able to communicate with the database, or will it be more of a backup/sync with a database you have on your handheld.

If you do intended the app to be live all the time, then just write a web app and construct it with small screens in mind. It would be faster and sort of cross platform.

If you intend to have the app just sync with a back-end.. Well then a simple web service should do you for storage. Yep. Rails would be the way to go.

It really depends on your users.. How will they be using the app? Where will they be?

Personally I like the stand alone application that just sync’s with the back-end. It is less prone to crashing because I walked into a tunnel. It also lets me control when and where I am when I sync. But it means the data I’m looking at could be out of date. And the data I’m adding isn’t right there for others to consume.. they have to wait for me to sync’.