Today we are pleased to release new Android and iOS SDKs for mobile developers interested in supporting Amazon Cloud Drive. These new additions are a part of the existing Amazon Mobile App SDK and can be downloaded directly from the Developer Portal. The updates will allow you to provide Unlimited Storage benefits for your customers using your apps more quickly and efficiently.

Improved Efficiency and Benefits

You can now quickly write new apps or make your existing apps interact with Amazon Cloud Drive using both the Android and iOS SDKs. With these updates you no longer need to understand and implement a separate instance of Login with Amazon. We’ve even taken care of the best practices of implementing a back-off strategy. Best of all, you can communicate with the Amazon Cloud Drive API without ever needing to worry about networking code.

Additional benefits include the ability to work exclusively with native Java and Objective-C object types, removing the need to ever parse JSON, as well as eliminating the need to refer back to the REST API documentation online. You also no longer need to explicitly use the Amazon Cloud Drive API to get Account endpoints, removing an entire step from your development workflow.

Apps Using New Amazon Cloud Drive Mobile SDKs

With the launch of the Amazon Cloud Drive mobile developer SDKs, we are also excited to announce new third-party apps supporting Cloud Drive through the Android and iOS SDKs.

A+ Gallery (Android): iPhone style photo gallery.

PhotoTime (iOS): Explore your photos at snapshot speed.

TextMaker HD Basic (Android): Create and edit documents on your tablet.

PlanMaker HD Basic (Android): Create and edit spreadsheets on your tablet.

Presentations HD Basic (Android): Create and edit presentations and slide shows on your tablet.
 

And, coming soon:

FiLMiC Pro (iOS): Turn your iOS camera into a broadcast worthy 2K HD video camera.

Vizzywig (iOS): All-in-one, movie-making application for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch that lets you record, edit, and preview in real time.

Cleen (iOS): Clean up your camera roll and photos in your Amazon Cloud Drive account.

For more photo, video and productivity apps be sure to check out the Amazon Cloud Drive App Gallery. You can also visit the Developer Portal to download the Amazon Mobile App SDK or to learn more about the Amazon Cloud Drive API and SDKs for Android and iOS. If you have any questions about getting started you can visit our Developer Forum.

-Dave (@TheDaveDev)

Developers have been using Amazon to store data in the cloud for some time, using the highly reliable and scalable Amazon Web Services like S3 to provide durable object storage and retrieval. Amazon Cloud Drive offers that same convenience to consumers, and millions use it to securely access their digital content from their desktop and mobile devices. Now you can build on that functionality and connect users to their Cloud Drive content from within your own apps. Enhance your photo editing app, for example, by allowing users to browse photos they have already stored in the cloud.

A New REST API

Today Amazon Cloud Drive announced the launch of its public API platform, which provides a RESTful interface for upload, download, manipulation, and organization of data in the cloud. You can use this API to integrate these services in your app and offer added flexibility to your users. Your app can provide direct access to their Cloud Drive storage and the content they keep there, as well as use it to preserve game settings, preferences, and other application state on their behalf.

For example, let’s say you have a note-taking app that stores its data locally. Using the new Cloud Drive API, you could allow users to enable synchronization with their personal storage in the cloud. Saving notes to their Cloud Drive would make the data accessible to your customers wherever they run your app—without requiring you to set up and manage servers, storage, or load balancers.

In addition to the convenience of this direct connection to their Cloud Drive from your app, customers also benefit from the reliability and safety of the underlying AWS platform on which Cloud Drive is constructed.

Less to Build, Faster to Market

When you connect your users to their own Cloud Drive storage, you can preserve and protect their app data without having to build an online data management system of your own. Cloud Drive is built to be robust and to scale transparently, so you never have to worry about availability or performance. The Cloud Drive API doesn’t impose any restrictions on file type, so your app can work with all kinds of content.

Many app developers have already integrated support for Cloud Drive into their mobile products. You can see some of these on the newly launched Cloud Drive App Gallery page. They include photo print services, content creation and editing apps, and content aggregation apps.

You can also hear first-hand what it’s like to integrate with Cloud Drive. Listen to Jason Toy, CEO of Filepicker, discuss the process and how it added value for their customers.

Integration Is Easy

Check out the Cloud Drive API Documentation for details on how to add Cloud Drive to your mobile apps. There is also a third-party SDK provided by Temboo to get you up and running fast.

-peter (@peterdotgames