API backends such as Parse, Stackmob, Kinvey or baas.io are the new hot thing in web & mobile app development. By packaging data storage, user management, file storage, push notifications and your own internal endpoints behind a nice, unified REST API, they can drastically reduce the time it takes to build an app, and minimize the costs you’ll incur maintaining a server infrastructure. In this talk, Tim Anglade, Head of Developer Programs & Evangelism at Apigee, will cover how this class of tools came to be and how they work, explain how to structure your app projects to maximize their usefulness, detail common problems & security issues you may encounter with an API backend, and give specific examples of how real-world apps are using them, from Silicon Valley to Seoul.