You can of course develop your own, but this comes right out of the box, promises to be secure and scalable (with some even offering Analytics).

On Monday (April 16, 2012) Cocoafish.com turned into Appcelerator’s New Cloud Service, which pushed me to write a post on the affairs of BaaS as it stands today.
(in alphabetical order)

★ Appelerator Cloud Services:

ACS is my first experience into BaaS ( when it was Cocoafish), I was privileged enough to get a Beta account as they launched into beta, and played around extensively with it. They offer you a custom Object you can save on the server, key-value objects, Push Notifications, Geolocation, and easy out of the box APIs such as: Places, Checkings, Users, Social integrations, Email Templates, Photos (& Collections), Posts, Access control lists, Users Status & Chat; And you can export your data if you ever choose to do so.

From what I’ve seen, they have the most feature rich out of all the other BaaS companies, as they also include Analytics (so all calls are being noted).

Libraries

AS3, JS, iOS, Android, REST & TiCloud module

Cost

They Do have a Free Plan, The following is on a Per Month Per App basis:
5 Million Push Notifications & 100’000 Emails
5 Million API Calls
20 GB Storage

Analytics 1 Million

★ Applicasa

★ Parse

Parse offers a better freemium model than ACS, their service APIs comprises of Key-Value Data, Push Notifications, Social Integration, Gelocations & Files storage. You can also choose to export you data.

Libraries

I have found Parse to have the most number of Libraries (thanks to third parties). From Lua, AS3, JS, iOS, Android and REST.

Cost

For the Free Plan you get on a Per Month Per App basis:
1 Million API Calls 
1 Million Push Notifications
1 Gb Storage (for files)

An Enterprise Plan will run you 199$/month and provide you with 15 Million API calls + 5 Million Push Notifications and 10 Gb of storage.

★ StackMob

StackMob is the most custom, which also means the most tedious (relative), you can upload your code to their servers to manage any custom server side calls and provide you with those custom APIs, Social Integration, Access control lists, as well as creating your Schema. Interestingly, they have a Marketplace of APIs.

Libraries

Offered: iOS, Android & JS. Also have an SDK with the option to upload your custom server code.

Cost

Their full Price Plans (prices may have changed)
For the Free Plan you get on a Per Month basis:
60’000  API Calls 
60’000 Push Notifications

I did not add Kinvey to this comparison sheet, because they do not have a pricing list, unless they intend for it to be Always Free (which would certainly be an eye opener).

Its your Choice

<s:DateTimeFormatter id="dateACSFormatter" dateTimePattern="yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss Z" useUTC="true />
var stringed = String(dateACSFormatter.format(eventDate.selectedDate)).replace(' ', 'T').replace(' ', ''))

To Get Back from the Server an ACS Formatted Date String into an Actionscript Date Object:

DateUtil.parseW3CDTF(stringed))

Out of many projects I’ve seen in Flex, there is too many too often, nested containers and extraneous properties that aren’t serving any purpose.

Below is a reference guide for you to choose your containers wisely. (click to view in separate window)

However, now it is something that Adobe would resolve very easily with the help of two different tools “Muse” and “Edge”. Makes you wonder why not have Flash CSx/Flex just export to HTML5/JS/CSS3? Could we be surprised?

Unlike the Dreamweaver, Muse is a tool which designers do not have to worry about a single line of code, and it comes out to be compatible with all the popular browsers, while taking advantage of CSS3 and HTML5 where possible. Currently, Muse is already in a Free beta version which can be downloaded from Adobe Labs, so you can test drive for free right up to the crisp version is released in early 2012 as predicted by Adobe.

In the short time, you can try out Muse, it is said that the interface of Muse is very pleasant to work with and you are used to work with Adobe design applications, it goes pretty fast to get into the workflow. In addition, you can use all the regular tools such as working with templates and style sheets in a manner similar to the “Indesign” product.

In addition to Muse, Adobe has developed a “Flash killer” tool known as “Adobe Edge” as they themselves say that Flash and Edge are complementary. The main goal of developing such an enhanced tool is to allow designers to produce animated content in websites, web games, animated banner ads in a manner similar to Flash, but based on HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript.

Edge is an ideal tool for visual, web and interaction designers who wish to stimulate their content for the web with various movement and transitions. Basically, Edge is developed primarily by focusing on animation and motion. Adobe Edge Preview is allows you to add the graphics that are produced using the Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Fireworks and Adobe Photoshop to form new and appealing graphics. It also allows you to open the HTML documents created using the CSS.

Technologies such as JavaScript, JSON, HTML, HTML5, CSS, web graphics including SVG, jQuery-based animation framework are supported in Adobe Edge Preview. Just as Muse, Adobe Edge is also free to download until the crisp version is released.

1. Download the AIR 3.x SDK Beta 2 (say, to your download folder)
2. Duplicate your latest Release Candidate (mine found in the sdks folder of Flash Builder)
3. Open Terminal and run the following: (make sure yours suit the path+foldernames):

ditto /Users/yourname/Downloads/air3-4_p1_sdk_mac_071612 /Applications/Adobe\ Flash\ Builder\ 4.6/sdks/NewAIR3.x_b2

4- Add new it to your Flex Compiler

So we decided to do a test:

On a Nexus One, Flash 10.1 consumes Half the battery of what HTML5 can do. Not to mention, the experience of animations in HTML5 is jittery, very obvious to a sharp Flash developer.

Funny enough, Chris Black has done a similar test with very similar results.

The world of applications for the living room is one of the most promising and “rich”. The income generated by the traditional TV world is still huge and the kind of interactity that a connected tv can assure can only enhance the business giving tailored advertising at a generally untargeted media.

In this scenario Flash is the perfect mate for the big companies who want to create new business model in this market (Sony, Google, Samsung in primis) but has to fight at the same time the power of Apple and his vision. In this context Flash is a tool that assure the availability of millions of developers ready to develop very good applications for new app markets. The most important features of AIR for TV is the StageVideo.

To quote Apple:

We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 to relax some restrictions we put in place earlier this year.

Sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 of the iOS Developer Program license focused on using third-party tools to develop iPhone applications. One very noteworthy example of such a tool was Adobe’s Flash to iPhone packager, which it created to allow Flash developers access to the lucrative iOS market.

Adobe’s website lists the packager product as being dead in the water, likely due to the original introduction of Apple’s restrictions in April 2010. It remains to be seen whether Adobe will resume development of the tool or if the company prefers to stay away now that it’s been burned before. On the other hand, appealing to cross-platform devs is a very good thing for Adobe.

So long as Adobe does continue its work with the app packager, this is great news for Flash developers. Cross-platform development is always a sticky mess, but tools like Adobe’s iOS packager take a lot of the sting out of the process, making it much easier to broaden the appeal of your product while keeping costs down. It keeps the door open for easier cross-platform development between iOS and Android, which is bound to be high on dev wish lists in the near future.

The second revelation of the press release is the pulling back of the review process curtain:

In addition, for the first time we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps. We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store.

Anyone who’s either had an app rejected themselves or who’s read about that frustrating experience will welcome this change. Apple’s often inscrutable policies regarding what does and what doesn’t get posted for sale in the App Store have been confusing, and often cause for complaint. In contrast, the newly-published Guidelines are surprisingly concise, covering only a little over six pages worth of material, and are essentially listed in bullet form organized around categories.

The document begins with an explanation of the basic tenets of the review process. Essentially, Apple lays out that it has kids in mind, doesn’t want any more fart apps, doesn’t want amateurish efforts, and will reject anything that goes “over the line” (which it claims reviewers will know when they see it). It also points out that a Review Board is in place, and that complaining to press outlets doesn’t help your case in this regard. Finally, it concludes that the Guidelines represent a living document, so it can essentially be changed at will in response to new situations.

The tone is almost defensive in a number of places, almost bullying in others, and in general, very conversational. It makes the Guidelines seem much less like a straightforward list document, and much more like a concerted effort on Apple’s part to compel developer cooperation and silence. Still, it also does what it claims, and it’s good to have a resource on the books to go to whenever developers cry foul.

It also means developers will have far less cause to cry foul in the first place. A careful examination of the guidelines document should make it much more clear how likely an app is to be approved at the concept stage, allowing studios and devs to make much more informed decisions about which projects they decide to take on. That should lead to less wasted money and effort, and to more apps of higher quality making it to the App Store intact.

- By Darrell Etherington Sep. 9, 2010, 9:37am CST

valueDate_ti is a text input that accept numbers to add to the date,
period_cb is a ComboBox, which selects the cycle time: Day, Week, Month, Year;

What a great day. While many of the Apple kool aid drinkers are eagerly awaiting the arrival of their so called Flash death machine known as the iPad, Adobe and Google have announced Flash Embrace. Flash Embrace is a commitment by Google to include the Flash Player in the distribution of its Chrome Browser. So, the lines are further drawn in the sand. Google vs Apple enter into another round and as someone who makes his living on the Adobe Flash Player, I am glad to have Google on the side of the Flash Player.

The question is, how long will it be before I can put my Google gPad on my desk next to my Android based Nexus One.